I am of course being facetious. But I will call point, set, and match. Showing levels is a bad idea because it promotes elitism. I think the XP system was just fine the way it was -- no additional encouragement was needed and it struck a nice balance between encouraging participation without encouraging too much elitism or someone "pulling rank". Having the title displayed in posts breaks that balance.

Besides, as grinder pointed out this change was made to (in theory) help deal with trolls. Does it accomplish that goal? And are the unintended consequences worth it? I am (not surprisingly) inclined to say "no" to both.

I have to say that I am pretty disappointed right now. It's sad when a simple suggestion like mine in 694443 that would make Super Search easier to use goes unimplemented while ones that can have a significant negative impact on the social workings of The Monastery are implemented without even a modicum of meaningful discussion. Not cool!

Regarding the religious motif, yes, it is meant to be fun. But that can be taken too far. The obvious example of this is the Grand Inquisitor title that was renamed to Sage (see this thread for more). I'm inclined to say showing the titles is pushing things a little too far.