Good post, again.
Points out the problem with the "historical method", which I subscribe to by the way. Anecdotal evidence has a role in order to build the empirical data, it's just so hard to validate and measure the former. In my case, I try to always separate what is family lore from "facts", although the paradox is that, if I can publish, then my "lore" becomes someone else's fact. "Lore" is another moving point in the story of humanity. (Way too early to be academic.)

Two observations:
so there is good reason for the clans to be held in low esteem throughout the rest of Scotland-and as for England!
Not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to the prejudice, which was there?
Outside the writer/observer class, most of the Britain was in a poor estate, Scotland more so.

Too whilst some would decry the wearing of the skean dhu, it is in the same way a link to our very being-our clansman/warrior being, so to discard it easily, or substitute a dummy, does not come easy.
More bad history method: ever try to line up family lore about the skean dhu with what side the clan would have been in '15/'45. There seems to be a correlation with the rebel side having a different mythos than the victor's more passive interest in the skean dhu but, again, it's bad science.