I really appreciated this suggestion, @dax – went with Custom header links (icons) to solve this problem (though we also currently use Custom Header Links for global nav).
When you’re logged in, it opens up an editing panel directing to our default category (customized uncategorized category).
Logged out view, clicking on the raised hands directs to login and looks like this:
When a logged in or out user rolls over it:
Jury’s still out on whether the raised hand glyph was a good choice, gonna let heat mapping tell us. It’s not getting clicked much so far – but search clicks have jumped up.
Thanks, again.