OK, so it seems to me like the prevailing opinion is actually against my egalitarian wishes to do away with the colored member titles, and could even be in favor of
more forum warrior ribbons and user titles.
To sum up my thoughts:
1. The reward for drawing is your own personal satisfaction and the praise received from fellow artists.
2. Post-count related accolades are literally the worst thing and only serve to reward those with a big mouth and not necessarily those who draw.
3. There are not that many people on this forum. It should be obvious based on the tone of the post and the person's name who is and who isn't a newbie.
4. As stated previously, the fake military rank system or military medal system is not attractive to me at all just because those ranks/awards denote actual service (i.e., not drawing boats in MSPaint).
To me the ideal solution is to not have any ranks other than Administrators (who receive no colored member title but have the admin capabilities tied to their account), and the Staff (who remain "green" just so people know who they are). I'm firmly of the belief that a forum needs no moderators but that's another issue entirely...