On a side note, love how you guys are worried about leaving a tag and want to have solid reasoning. Wish we had that in our universe where I'm from.😅
Well, where the rest of us are at, this method is the most prudent when there's a contentious issue. Some red tags can be handed out with zero debate while others are way more complicated.
You take a week off from a thread, and it's like stepping into an alternate universe – either the thread got wiped out, or we've got a brand-new OP.
No shit. I read most of this thread when it started, and right now I feel like I need to go back and figure out just what the hell is really going on. Guess I haven't really been paying attention to this--or at least not enough.
So Symmetric (ex. Ratimov) went to the full length of lodging a request with a site administrator just to change his username? AFAIK this is the only way it's possible to be done outside of being a VIP (50 BTC donation).
And it was granted just like that? Uhhh... Weird but ok.

Nah, lots of members (including yours truly) have gotten name changes granted via a simple request to Theymos. Hell, cryptovatorcoolvator even got two of them. And yeah, I know this has already been addressed.