Penguins wear feathers (albeit brown ones when young). They have no choice. They are birds. They do keep kosher for the most part (eating only fish).
Among humans, only penguins, there are diverse styles and if you don’t wear what is in style people think you are weird. Among Americans, consider the problems of a man, other than Scot, who wants to wear a skirt instead of pants? And if you want to be well dressed in the US, you are very limited in the styles and colors of your suit (Obama got in trouble for dress code violations last summer since his suit wasn’t formal enough for his rank and was considered disrespectful). Fashion can be bizarre (look up what proper undergarments for a well dressed western European or American woman were in the mid-19th century – utterly weird — fortunately that style never caught on in frum communities in Eastern Europe or the Middle East).
So really its not that the frum community has weird rules, its that humanity has a weird way of doing things, and the criticism directed towards the frum community reflects the limited knowledge or perhaps sheltered background of the critics.