We do get a lot of admins on here. 
Personally I enjoy getting feedback from a diverse range of Discourse users (even if I don’t necessarily agree with it all ).
There are some people who do really dislike the badges and the notifications they deem ‘non-relevant’, and it has cropped up a few times before (especially from those who have joined multiple Discourse sites). We do have the opt-out for some onboarding as you reference in Excitement Opt-Out Panel, but I do agree with @mattdm that a change in Trust Level is a significant enough change to inform people about as it often grants new abilities that people would find useful (and which can be tailored on a per-site basis, so no ‘Discourse-wide’ absolutes).
Just as a small extra note, the fact that you’re engaging in UX and ‘meta’ discussions about the software itself I think raises you a couple of notches up from the ‘lowest end user’. I should see if I can rustle you up a badge for that…