I'm a big fan of fine wale corduroy. I find "frump factor" comes more from cut/style of pant, skirt or jacket than material in this case. I have several pairs of fine wale corduroy skinnies (yesterday's Rainy Day WIW deep red skinnies are actually fine wale corduroy from Blank NYC and they hold their shape really well (they are made like second skins). I have them in deep eggplant as well).
I also have a couple of straight/boot cuts and a deep red blazer in fine wale corduroy. I like the RATE aspect of corduroy and find that, depending on what I style those pieces with, they're are very versatile.
Wide wale corduroy is a different story, imho. I find it looks dated to my eye. However, I wouldn't rule it out depending on the item and it's cut/style (but not for pants --for me, anyway, that's too 70's).