The inverse is also true, while a Noble title will get you a good spot at a traditional restaurant in London - for the most part nobody cares now that they don't employ half the village.
Anecdotal, but the way I sampled the status question is this: 15 years ago, when I told someone I can code, I was seen as some sort of genius. Fast-forward couple of years, and the exchange started to go like this:
"What do you do?"
"I'm a software developer."
"Oh cool. Like my boyfriend and my brother."
My impression is that most people don't see intelligence as a good thing; not socially, at least.
15 or 20 years ago, if I said I was a programmer outside of my chosen peer group, people were more likely to respond like I was someone not worth associating with socially.
Now, people almost treat it like any other high earning professional. My impression was that then, it was only a job you went into if you didn't have opportunities in business or law or whatever. Now? it's on the standard path to both of those, and catching up (but still not there) on renumeration.
My impression is that a lot of the people who came into the industry after me were the sorts who would have gone into business or law in the '90s. This makes me seem a lot more socially normal than I was when I was younger.