If I'm not wrong, for the art contest badges, he put them on manually. He can do it occasionally for a particular event, but I can't see Theymos doing it on a regular basis (unless he appoints a "badge giver", like he did for the "whitelisters").
You're probably not wrong at all, and my point is that Theymos did indeed give someone a badge, so it can be done again. I wouldn't expect that he'd have to give different badges to however many reporters he wanted to give reporter badges to, so it isn't as though he'd have to create more than one. Nor would he have to hand out more than, say, 10 (for the top 10 reporters of all-time, which is who I think they ought to be given out to). How much extra work could that possibly be? I don't think it's a matter of work or coding; I think it's a matter of will.
What about the users who don't want to have their activity exposed? Have you thought about it?
I'd say PM Theymos about that if you're concerned about your anonymity. I'm pretty sure he'd respect that.