Yeah, I definitely agree with your first point. EY writes "and then from talking to this person for 30 seconds I determined that they were not worth listening to" which makes me terrified and therefore much less likely to make sense in those initial 30 seconds if I were confronted with ... him. (That link was one of the more forgiving contexts.)

But I think I was trying to push for a boring, paperwork evaluation of where that status came from. In some cases, you might examine it and decide you should actually trust the person's expertise on some matter. But not all matters everywhere ever and no they can't also sign your arm/face.