Nev,
“For starters, you could look at the paintings of the Gra, Chasam Sofer, Ksav Sofer, etc. What was the point of this discussion, again? Surely you’ll find a lot of bearded Jews if you go back to the pre-electric shaver days, right?”
Asides that the discussion pertains to laymen not Rabbanim, so you can’t compare, – even many MO Rabbis wear beards to this very day. (Note, it is certain, there was no such concept as a Rabbi w/o a beard in those times), but lets take it a step further, even the typical Non-Jew in Poland and in Russia, most were ‘bearded’ until the early 1900’s.
So the mere fact that every Jew went with a beard is non-applicable as proof of Mesorah, unless you back it up. Chassidim in Poland they wore Spudiks on Shabbos because they couln’t wear Shtriemels at one point so that became their “mesorah”, According to many Shtreimels developed from a ‘Gezero’, same with Yerushalmi garb, the striped Zebras etc, was also a result of one of the Ottoman decrees..
If you look at all Chabad Rabbis, starting from the Baa’l Ha’tanya, Tzemech, then Rashab you will see a change of dress code as well…