IMHO then, they should be truly meaningless or not there at all. Unfortunately anything with an ascending hierarchy will be viewed by some as some sort of rank or competitive badge of honor. Simply using the post count may do this as well.

This in turn may lead to meaningless short posts like " I agree completely." which add nothing to the thread but do add to a newbies post count.

As much as I have kicked and moaned lately about this forum becoming more like maemo.org (from now on known to me as m/o), if we are going to do it, it might as well be whole hog.

I voted for the m/o style header because it does look more polished and is more unique among other forum styles.

Another possibility is to make more user customizations available to a member based on time and/or post count. Each member can decide how or if they want to show their colors.

After so long and/or so many posts a member can upload their own avatar. Below that they can only choose from 10 or fifteen forum provided ones. At another time and/or grade a member might be able to use his own title. Below that they are given 1 of 10 random ones. (< These random titles could change at random intervals as well, to to add some interest and fun.) At yet another level, features like the infamous thread tags are made available... and so on.

This is new to me. Most publicly viewed forums that I've dealt with are privately owned. What the owner wants, the owner can get. This forum from what I gather, will be something different.