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The impression I get is that the backlash that you see about pledge pins arose because some groups had pin requirements that really were pretty absurd.
For example, there are plenty of stories out there about groups that required pledges to wear their pins at all times -- including to bed. There were stories of members showing up at random but unlikely times, including the middle of the night, to make sure that the pledges were wearing their pins. Although that is a mild form of hazing, I think that it does amount to hazing.
I don't know if my fraternity ever had that kind of practice; in any event, it was firmly abolished well before I got there. We wore our pins because we were proud to be part of the organization, but if someone happened not to be wearing his, there were no negative repercussions. (If someone never wore it, the brothers had a tendency to wonder how he felt about his associate membership, though.)
So, some groups had stupid, unreasonable requirements that put their pledges/associates on edge about receiving some form of disciplinary action or harassment should they be caught not conforming with those unreasonable requirements, coupled with the feeling that they were being constantly watched. We should know by now that when that sort of thing happens, the result will be a harshly opposing rule that excludes a lot of reasonable activities as well as the unreasonable ones. I don't think that's a good thing, but that seems to be the way these matters work. I'm just saying this to add historical context.
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