Originally Posted by tore

Yes, a couple of minor ones. First, if you look at Conan's (or "These Guys") post up there, you'll see roughly 50% of it is nothing, just empty space under his signature as his enormous avatar forces his posts to take up more space on a page than necessary. It's not a big problem, but it can make you have to scroll a bit more in threads he participates in to find relevant text and, in my opinion, it doesn't look good to have pages fill up with nothing just to accommodate enormous avatars.

In other words, the 250 pixel height guideline is there for a reason.

The second is that I don't think any regular members would've gotten such a huge avatar had they requested it. That makes it a very visual reminder that mods (or at least Conan) enjoy different privileges from regular users. Some may not mind, but I'm against that sort of thing on principle. As this is just one case, it's pretty minor. Had all the mods visibly enjoyed various privileges not available to members, I believe it would've had a negative impact on the community - or at least on the regular users/mods relationship. So basically, if it's bad when everyone does it, then I think no one should do it.