Well being an original player nowadays is quite rare, most of the people I played with back in the first days have left now and seeing another person with that hat on it was an easy way to connect with them about old gangs, old admins and old friends.
I actually got my name from being the first person in Era with the Scream mask, I believe it was Snk that dragged me and a bunch of others up onto the old start building and was giving out hats in apologies to the hat prices in the first mafia shop going from 150$ to 2500$(Admins were incredible back then and far more personable with such a small player count).
I was bummed when the hat was eventually added to that same shop like 3 months afterwards but I understood that it was bound to happen eventually with such a cool hat lol.. So I can relate about the G-Hammer Peter.
Anyways taking the achievement out of the white original hat was a terrible idea and is just another nail on the coffin of Era for me.