This must be a difficult topic…
There is a lot of stuff I would not climb into.
But as any instructor would point out, the training industry would have a hard time if it worked like that.
Depends what you’re doing in it. My thought is preflight the stuff carefully that is essential and relevant to the flight being conducted, and use your head during the run up. Don’t worry about cosmetics and records, they lie.
When I was a kid in the 70s there were marginal looking planes around, often owned by marginally employed people, and I rode in a number of them. One guy used to take me flying in a C140 that had the paint half stripped because he didn’t want to stop flying during his paint job. There was nothing much wrong with the plane as long as I bolted the seat in carefully before we went out. No problem for a conscientious 12 year old 
On the other hand in that same era my dad went out and did some fooling around in a Aeronca that looked very nice, dog fighting versus one of the local Cubs. A couple of months later they found a crack in the wood spar that he (being a structural guy) calculated as limiting the wing to 2 G ultimate. I’m not sure how best to avoid that with any certainty.
Didn’t we have that topic already? Or was that in the old days of PPRuNe…
But as any instructor would point out, the training industry would have a hard time if it worked like that.
I stopped to care what the aeroplanes look from the outside long ago. As long as they are technically well maintained and the minimum number of instruments/avionics required for the flight are installed and working, I fly. One of my worst emergencies so far (engine failure upon rotation) was in a very neat looking Cessna 421 that had recently been painted and freshly upholstered. Never had any real emergency in a flying school aircraft.
I second that.
The greatest benefit with a nice looking aircraft is that passengers and new students feel more secure, besides the fact that it feels nice.
But a well maintained aircraft and simple gear that actually works is a whole lot better than nice paint and dodgy equipment.
+1 to what next and Krister.
In fact, one of ‘my’ airplanes that I have been renting for years looks pretty worn out. But – the people I rent from have their own maintenance organization and I know the thing is well maintained and mechanically sound.
The paint is – largely – irrelevant. Just yesterday afternoon I had a radio burn out (electrical smell and all) overhead LAX. In a nice, pretty new 172S with leather seats……
