I think in general and the more with this new direction, the workings of trust levels could be easier to understand and communicate making this more evident. And having a conceptually clearer distinction to badges and their more playful side to gamification.
E.g. right now trust levels show as badges, though the access rights actually come from group membership. But those groups don’t show by default. Trust levels could be removed from the badge system and the badge page and only show on the groups page (with natural names instead of trust_level_x).