My country is Louisiana. You might say it is not exactly mainstream U.S.A. The vast majority of people here have no earthly idea what arrangers are. Other musicians don't have a clue--they understand sequences, they understand loops, they don't understand arrangers. In general the younger audiences are so indoctrinated to Karaoke that they are certain we're singing to "tapes". The older people still remember organs and they associate keyboards in that manner--which is certainly closer to the truth.
Only in the past few years have there been any other arranger players in the area. I have created a little interest (and competition) by introducing the arranger technology to a few singles and duos. I can still count them on one hand in an expanded area of around one million people.
In a nutshell, people have no opinion of arrangers because they don't know what they are.
DonM