I honestly do not want to get into a debate over these as it is not like we are posting how much someone is spending, an address, etc. I do understand the concerns, hear them and will do my best to address them.

For one thing, being a Prime member could potentially lead to harassment by anti-Rendo trolls. There may also be times when a vendor or tester wants to hide such info temporarily if things are blowing up in the forums, in order to be able to post something while avoiding harassment. The harassment could take the forms of spiteful forum posts or hostile PMs (or in some cases, might even extend beyond this site) Hiding badges won't prevent all of it, and there are many very smart trolls out there, but your average troll isn't very bright, and probably won't even look to see if someone posting in a thread is a vendor or even top vendor, for instance. I do think that some of the badges are a waste of time, but whatever, it's not a big deal to me. However, the admin and tester icons I find highly useful and welcome them. They stand out yet are nice and tiny, thus non-intrusive. In some incarnations of the forums, it has been difficult to find the "admin" tag after someone's name.