There's a litany of problems that can cause the notes to not render properly, not at all, or simply not show by design (mobile, "new website"), so there's legitimate cases for people not seeing the notes at all.

So lemme post them in such a way that mostly avoid these:

(in the notes corner)

Oh, and about the hat:

She got it back in a recent update, thanks for nothing Sandy Petersen.

All in all this all brought to my attention that AoE2:DE keeps getting updates and it finally got something I wanted and kinda expected since Age of Empires I: That elite/final forms got extra drip. (as a kid, reading the tech trees, the last form of a unit shares the icon but has a golden aura. Actually expected the unit to also glow)

Upon becoming Elite: Samurais get a concheror, Jannies get their hat back and then some, Teutonic Knights helmet becomes winged, Winged Hussars become biblically accurate, and so on.

Also another update no one could expect: