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Indefensible opinion following, since of course it's Only A Matter Of Taste, And What Does Taste Mean Anyway, Sometimes You Just Like Something, Cigars Are Only Cigars, Societal Trends Don't Exist For Any Underlying Reasons:
I think not liking those nicknames is cowardly. These are all good, old names borne by good, old people with gilded pictures in encyclopedias. The problem is they have also been borne by normal people, whom other people deal with, and whose names were shortened in practical use. These people are also sometimes fat, poor, and/or vulgar. Frederick the Great may have been these things, but not when he was being Frederick the Great. Loving Frederick and hating Fred is a form of self-denial. You want the dignity of the image of the name you've constructed in your head, and don't want the indignity with it. You want a name that will dress in a jacket and bring you roses, and not one that will leave dishes on the counter or forget to put the toilet seat down. Frederick is eternally handsome, and Fred probably has some kind of back hair or halitosis that is unacceptable in idealized constructions of people.

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Well, what's wrong with wanting an ideal. Fine. This is an argument much too big for a simple baby names opinion post. Personally, my opinion is (that it's absolute fact that) beauty doesn't happen until you smear an ideal. And when it comes to the point of imposing these unrealistic idealisms of your kid onto other people - it's NOT Fred! WHY would you shorten his name! I HATE that! it's FREDERICK! and he learns to feel this way too - and people do this all the time, Christopher, Alexander, Benjamin, we can't be called a short common name that everyone else has - it becomes, well, obnoxious. A lot of southerners do this, and because we're so bloody polite it works out okay. It's to the point where I no longer shorten names automatically anymore, even when Jacobs tell me they go by Jake. So stupid.

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A lot of parents even shy away from using a name they love because they can't stand the thought of their precious archangel baby Michael being called Mike like the used car salesman, or their stately grounded firstborn William ever being a Bill like the Bill who used to live next door with the yappy dog, and so they suffer through a lot of angst and end up compromising one way or the other. Well, good. I hope they all decide against them. You don't get Frederick if you can't deal with Fred, Frederick out of his regalia. (Of course it doesn't actually work that way.)

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But is it so much bigger of a deal to call someone Frederick than Fred? One extra syllable? Yes, because it's not only about the length of the name, it's about ownership and familiarity. People today think they are so autonomous and that they don't owe anything to strangers. Being called a nickname means you have surrendered a form of distance - it's comparable to what German does with Sie and du, and Spanish with usted and tú, although not exactly the same. This mechanism is mysterious and complicated and one I'd like to explore on my own some time when I don't have to write an assignment really fast. Is there even a distance in a family if I call my son Frederick and never Fred? Yes, you're giving credence to a strangely constructed autonomy that doesn't and shouldn't exist.

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Blah blah blah. I'm taking two classes from this philosophy professor who drives here from Budapest two days a week, which means I get six hours of this kind of hard analysis of everything crammed into two days. Please forgive me. I have to admit at the end of this long and offensive post that I might dislike Alfie enough to put me off of Alfred, but in my defense, Alfie is one of those stupid names like Liam which have a backwards relationship with their full names as Fred/Frederick do; Alfie is cute and sweet and new while Alfred is someone who actually existed at some point, etc. I like Al and Alf okay.

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Anyway.

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I love Frederick and Peter, and Fred and Pete are my buds.