[Sauron the White]

Okay... lets approach this from a different tact. Forget for a minute about whose office was higher, who was in power and who was not, whose lineage was the more prestigious or lengthy, or what was the exact import of the various offices or thrones.

This was in the middle of war. The city had just been attacked by a couple of hundred thousand orcs, trolls, Nazgul and Grond thrown in for good measure. Large portions of it were destroyed and burned. Several sections of the city were probably largely uninhabitable. Lots of good people died in its defense. And then we realize that this is but a blip, a bump in the road. All means nothing if Frodo runs into serious opposition in Mordor and fails to complete his task.

With all this on the plate of Aragorn, Gandalf and group, is it logical to stand on manners and ceremony at this most crucial of times? During World War II lots of major buildings all over Europe were turned into war rooms where meetings were held and I would bet that the previous occupants would be shocked if they could see soldiers putting their feet up on that highly polished mahogany table or putting a cigar out on the family china. But it happened and it was not because anybody wanted to urinate upon or disrespect on the family or national crest or flag.

It was wartime plain and simple. That kind of urgency has a brutal and immediate way of cutting through all the social nicities of normal life and rendering them all pretty meaningless.

I am not British but I read and have seen newsreels where during the bombing of Britain during WWII, the Queen (who I guess is now the Queen Mother) would visit bombsites the next day, sometimes even the same day to meet with people and keep spirits up by purchasing some little item or food product in the nieghborhood to show the people that normal life should go on. I was not there. But I have to imagine that the conduct of those neighborhood people in meeting the Queen in a bombed out store may have been just a tad bit different than a formal presentation to the Queen at a formal event at the palace. At least that is what the old newsreels showed.

Same here with Gimli on the throne.
This so called lack of respect appears to be making a mountain out of a molehill.