Drearyweather: "Similarly, when religious books are silent on certain matters, each religious group has the leeway to form their own rules on them. In fact, each congregation will have a separate unwritten law on this matter depending on their local culture."
Leaving aside the question of why (Christian) religions would form extra rules when their leader clearly hated that kind of behaviour, as mentioned by someone else earlier the religious book does clearly state that men should grow beards. So an organisation which chooses, as is their right as you point out, to create a rule which has it's basis in nothing more than a mans opinion is not only ridiculous, it is unchristian.
And as for your example of the guy that had a ponytail, a beard, tattoo's and stopped going to meetings... but still had JW friends? Baloney! I can give you an example though. I work for a national company that has no head office dress code. I have a beard and, until my wife cut it off Delilah-style, a ponytail.
All that your example shows is that a company with good reason may have similar rules to a religious organisation with NO good reason. My example shows that companies without any good reason to ban beards... don't.
In case you're interested my wife cut off my ponytail because I was whinging about it being uncomfortable in this heat. She got the kitchen scissors and just snipped it off while I was watching Pointless!