On the other hand, the very first time I wanted to use a background feature (Noble) to save my party a few gold on rooms at an inn, the DM frowned and said "I don't know that this noble would have ever heard of you, so he's not likely to give you all shelter for the night".
Which isn't an unreasonable position, really, though it was annoying at the time. Basically, to make Background Features really work in a game, the DM has to set up opportunities for them in their adventure design, which is extra work for them, especially if they want to use canned adventures. So my experience has been, mostly that they are vestigial elements.
It really comes down to the DM to determine how useful or important these things are. In many games even alignment has become a largely dispensable part of a character. Like that weird trinket every character owns that does nothing. Now if in your games these are all critically important, that's fantastic...but there's a lot of games where it isn't. So it comes down to, do we keep stuff in the game that only some groups will want, remove them to streamline the game, or give them mechanical weight to make it more likely that people will have to interact with them?
"I don't want to be mobbed by my fans..." 
Or "how am I suppose to know what my people really think about me and my family unless I disguise myself and walk amongst them?"
