It's actually surprisingly decent for the most part, one of the main positive changes scientific academic culture's made from traditional academic culture. If you look at 19th-century journals, you can always tell who has a Ph.D. or often even who's won various awards or been granted various honors, because they put all their titles and postnomials wherever they can. Some areas of the humanities still put authors' credentials in the author line and on their badges at conferences, but in most scientific journals you have no idea just by reading the paper which of the names are grad students vs. professors vs. research scientists.
(One exception is the IEEE, which puts author bios with their academic pedigree and current position at the end of every paper, and attaches "IEEE Fellow" in the author list to those authors who are IEEE Fellows.)
In my admittedly limited experience as an interested layman, it seems to have swung to an opposing extreme, if anything. I've come to associate plastering degrees and qualifications all over with someone being a borderline crackpot, while things written by the truly impressive people tend to do little more than give their name and where they work.
I mean, seriously. When was the last time you saw something say "Dr. Knuth"?
When was the last time you saw something say "Dr. Knuth"?
You won't see that very often -- Knuth is particular about including first names (or rather, their initials). He got quite upset with me when I wanted to be "Colin Percival" rather than "Colin A. Percival"...
That said, you will see "Dr. D.E.Knuth" in any sort of formal situation (e.g., a visiting lecture); even if "Knuth" by itself is enough, it's simple politeness to provide a full title.
(One exception is the IEEE, which puts author bios with their academic pedigree and current position at the end of every paper, and attaches "IEEE Fellow" in the author list to those authors who are IEEE Fellows.)