If you work in an environment that views programmers purely as a cost of business, and doesn't value their input, you've found a bad environment.
The best firms that make massive use of software view their programmers as a key member of the team, because they know that they can't do their jobs without them. And some would argue that getting respect DESPITE your attire is the bigger indicator of power.
That being said, "I have to wear a suit because I have to meet with customers; therefore everybody else has to suffer" isn't a particularly compelling argument.
I can't vote you up enough, for that first sentence.
Most likely not representative of places that require a dress code, but an anecdote nonetheless:
My first full-time job after dropping out of college - and moving 600 miles away from friends, family: pretty much every one I knew - was at a small (~100 employee) direct marketing firm building landing pages in a dingy office.
They required slacks and a tie every day except Friday - when The Powers That Be deemed it good for morale to allow us to wear a polo shirt. Everyone was required to follow the code - from the designers building ads to the salespeople cold-calling universities.
It was simple work, and I yearned to be promoted to the actual development group - they got to work in PHP and C++, while I was stuck with plain old HTML, CSS, and a smattering of JavaScript. Until I found out what kind of code was responsible for a majority of the company's revenue. One of their salespeople had apparently picked up a PHP book quite a while ago, and suggested to management that they move away from cardpacks and start generating leads online. He was crafty, and made them sign a document saying the code was owned solely by him. He wrote the software that drove the lead generation platform, and a few months later quit. They hired him back at twice the salary to come in once a week as a consultant to fix bugs.
And bugs a plenty there were. Of course, the three developers in the next pod weren't allowed to touch the Holy Grail of Lead Generation. It was owned by the contractor. There were severe, showstopping bugs cropping up nearly weekly while I was there - bugs that would cause clients to drop us. And that was once I came on board - they'd been using the same PHP file for the previous 7 years or so. And the contractor would always tell us that it was our (the designers) fault for corrupted lead data.
One of the developers in the next pod found a security hole in the server one day, and grabbed a copy of the php file. All 14,000 lines of nested if blocks that it was. Every "bug fix" was simply a switch at the bottom of the file, with one case for each of the accounts that ended up having bugs.
Every time we suggested ways of making the process of getting a campaign out the door faster and more efficient, management would tell us: "OK, if you want it done - come in on the weekend." The CTO couldn't understand what an API was.
I haven't worked at a place that required a tie for any of the employees since then. When it comes to small businesses, at least - from this experience and several of my acquaintances' - if there's a dress code, run very, very far away. It's usually an indicator that you're expected to be a cog in the machine - not a curator of the machine.
(The direct marketing firm was bought out by a competitor about three months after I left, who had even worse lead generation software. It folded six months later).
The best firms that make massive use of software view their programmers as a key member of the team, because they know that they can't do their jobs without them. And some would argue that getting respect DESPITE your attire is the bigger indicator of power.
That being said, "I have to wear a suit because I have to meet with customers; therefore everybody else has to suffer" isn't a particularly compelling argument.