Hello, I've been thinking on the subject of why people like one communication device against another.
Personal touch is something that comes to mind. Take skype, a popular voice over ip. but also a popular chatroom device.
I credit that aspect to the fact that you get to select an icon, a picture, not necessarily your own face - to represent you.
I was thinking along the lines that some games have Real ID integration, but if DU is a single world on clustered servers then there wont be a whole lot of Alternative character creation and thus a real minimal demand for real ID.
I was thinking that possibly in the in game chats our forum's avatar might display next to your text, or other possibilities including inside your profile, or next to your name on the list of people in the chat.
It could chew a few bits of data, but with some reasonable options like disable auto load of avatar icons unless clicked, only load friends icons unless clicked.
It might be a little nick nack feature that people come to enjoy that allows them to project a little piece of themselves into the world.
Also a subject that probably needs a topic of its own, as has been said by others, but I figure that the community can police the images, something with alot of negative votes gets sent to a tribunal where a majority of the voters need to say yes, this bulge is too inappropriate or R-rated.