Cattle will sling a lot of snot & drool from their front end, & liquid & fecal matter from the other. Some drool & other splatter from horses. Around here we don't have many working cowboys on horseback. We have dogs & pickup trucks. Anyone feeding & doctoring cattle wear either a plasticized shantung straw they can wipe clean, or a free ball cap with advertising. A DVM might show up wearing a felt OR or a farrier might show up wearing a full Western, but those are worn to denote their status & will stay in the truck when they approach the stock.
So, based on what I seeing (somewhat limited, admittedly) so far... most working cowboys don't wear felt hats on the job. So the felt hats are used for??? Sitting in the stands at the rodeo? Heading out to the bar? Any other non-working activity I guess.
Which would suggest (to try to circle back to the thread topic) that, while not justifiable to let quality deteriorate, the average Stetson customer might not notice the lesser quality because they aren't really "stressing" the hat that much?