Are you kidding? If the sport is being watered down, why are standards for the only marathons that have them getting tougher? Boston is now 305, and that is if the 250 and 300 group doesn't fill it first. And now NYC is going to take either 77 or 245, instead of 123 or 255. That is thanks to the army of "hobby joggers" who eventually cause an overall improvement and increase in competitiveness of the sport.
And as for marketing, wake up. Do u honestly think any other sport is different? How many people do you think stroll into a sporting good's store and buy the most top of the line driver to drop their score from a 70 to a 65? And how many kids playing soccer and football buy the most expensive, coolest looking under armour jersey when they don't come close to the caliber of talent needed to even play d3 in college, when they could just as easily play in a cotton shirt or a cheap dry fit from target.
And as for esteem and respect....if you pull a 100 people off the street and you have 2 different marathon runners tell them, "hey...I ran a 230" and have the other guy say "hey....I ran a 315, " they are going to have the same response..."hey...good for you." so if you don't run for yourself, and apply the lessons you gain from running, like dedication/hard work/etc, to the rest of your life, than what are you really running for? It doesn't matter if you display your common finishers medal in your study or if you throw it away as long as you are using your running to find a greater meaning and purpose in your life.
None of these arguments hold any water. Just keep on wasting your ltime analyzing how every little thing in your life will affect your running. If you do that long enough, eventually you will wake up one day when you are 40, and you finally realize that no different than the rest of us