SJS:
Your “always pleasant” subtitle was not very evident in your previous posts.
Since you can’t defend the points, you chose to bow out. That’s okay; you don’t have to defend anything, much less the indefensible like MO.
If this story, about not davening without a black hat, is true, it must have been any respectable hat, not just black.
The reason you are scratching your head is that a black hat during davening is, in fact, NOT a fashion statement. (The black part might be fairly uniform, but the whole thing is certainly not a fashion statement.) Just as every dignified human male wears both a suit and a hat, with the exceptions of much of those influenced by the decline of the society around us, one must do the same when addressing the King of Kings.
Giluy Arayos is Yeihareig ViAl Yaavor. What would medicinal purposes have to do with anything? And why would it have to be mixed, even if it were medicinal?
Face facts: MO elevated modernity on a pedestal and, in the process, tramples on parts of the Torah.
As well, there are more shades of gray than a simple stark comparison between Chareidi and MO.
Finally, Traditional Orthodoxy, which Rabbi JBS mistakenly thought would become a museum piece and was his impetus for creating MO, did not, B”H, become a museum piece.
BE”H, the truth will be revealed BB”A.