It's funny how people are attempting to form a sort of pressure group to keep pushing for:

1. Changes to the merit system
2. Taking away DT status from members like Lauda, actmyname, Pharmacist etc who give negative rating to spammers.

Welcome to democracy and class-wars in the age of information. Where I want my pedestrian, uniformed "opinion" to hold as much weight as an expert's, well-researched advice. Because well, I too have twitter and facebook and can get 5000 like me to follow me. LOL.. 

Thoughts on Account Dealing: My identity on the forum is pretty much an open book. I joined to learn and see what this awesome place has to offer. I was fascinated that developers like Hal Finney, Maxwell, Gavin, Mike Hearn and the lot, even Satoshi himself posted here. the 10,000 BTC pizza started here. I didn't know enough to care much about anonymity.

Now when i think of it, If i wanted to really do something to help people in BTC usage, I'd like to be anonymous. But if i start a business with a newbie account, can i hope to hit the ground running?? No. It'll take longer. In that case, i could think about looking for an anonymous, established identity here. I think those are the lines along which someone wanting to buy an account in 2015-16 would have thought. Anonymity has its own advantages if you want to be constructive but unfortunately, it is a double-edged sword, much like cryptography.

Account dealers just saw the opportunity at that time but it morphed into something much more vicious when people started buying accounts to wield DT power or to simply turn them into Zombie accounts for Bounty stakes.