At first the username-on-top felt weird to me, but now that I’m used to it, it feels very right. As for the Username + Full Name (+ Title) on the other hand, this still feels wrong.
Three different shades of grey, plus an icon? That’s too much. And yes it’s only “VIPs”, but there’s usually at least one VIP in every thread.
First thing I would recommend is to let users choose their display name, same way authors can do it on WordPress:
- Username
- Full Name
- First Name
Except you wouldn’t make “Username + Full/First Name” an option.
Basically what you’d be doing by making this decision is that you choose whichever name you’d prefer the majority of people to call you by. Maybe I’ve grown accustomed to signing up as “hotwheels89” on every website, but actually I prefer people call me “Bob” these days, so that’s what I’d like to have displayed up there. Anyone who needs to know my username or full name can just click on my avatar.
Thanks to the solid @mention autocomplete this would work fine.