if you don't want to do any of these things, just don't join an army.
Yes, I agree. But it isn't really you who chooses which army you're in (unless you're a region lord). And nowadays, you still see knights who don't use the informal army banner, and I'm not sure they do it just because it looks ugly on the unit name. Though I have to say it's rare to see conflict between knights and armies in this level.
Maybe you're right, and everyone should be identified whether they want it or not. It just seemed so logical to me, an opportunity to tie two "loose ends" together, to tie one of the imaginary tools of game mechanics with a graphical resource that would solve an identification problem... I was just surprised to see it wasn't what you had in mind.
