Formal Dining?

Is there such a thing as formal dining anymore?  Tonight was my grandparents 50th anniversary and my huge family went out to a fancy restaurant for dinner.  We all dressed to impress.  I was told it was to be my Sunday best, yet when we got to the restaurant there were people dressed like they had just come from playing a round of golf or tennis.  I'm not saying that they were not nicely dressed, but they were defiantly not dressed to code.  This got me wondering if there even is a code out there anymore?  Going downtown to clubs that say dress code in effect means very little now a days... pretty much a pair of Aldo sneakers will get you in the door.  At one Toronto club with a dress code, I saw 4 men all wearing Venezuela baseball jerseys back when the world baseball classic was in town.  Is that dress code?  I suppose that these places really just want our money, but come on.  Some people put in the effort to look good, and you would think places that would like to be known as more then just your local watering hole would want this type of person to be their customer.  Maybe I'm wrong... but I think the term "dress code" should actually have some meaning at restaurants and clubs, if they are going to use one at all.