While not all of us can spend the time to become an HN celebrity, there are many of us who have worked to get a high karma over time. HN should highlight the names of such users in purple, similar to the way it highlights newbies with green.
Considering that the post is 3.5 years old, it makes me wonder if this problem has always been around. I wonder if this problem is cyclic and peaks at different times during the year or during certain events, such as summer or demo days.
PG tried that (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467181), except with orange instead of purple.