Interesting points. I know I'd never likely make it to a five year badge but that's fine for me. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised to find I'm real different from most folks. Being as diverse a group of crunchers as everyone is, I suppose there could be some folks that might be discouraged by the high end badges but wouldn't that be true now to some extent for the emerald and sapphire badges?

As for folks running BOINC on machines that aren't "theirs", that's not limited to folks with a lot of machines under their username. I've known folks who help a friend set up a machine and also set up BOINC running under their username at the same time. If both parties involved are okay with that, that should not be a problem. If someone gets the okay to run BOINC on all the machines in a lab or office or such, what difference does it make if they run them all under their own username? They made the effort. Let them get the credit. After all, the idea is to get idle machines crunching WCG. As WCG doesn't differentiate for this situation now with the existing badges, how would this be any different? Who knows, it might encourage folks to do more of this and, as long as both parties are okay with it, that's that many more machines crunching for us.

The main point is to give better recognition to those folks who've invested their time, effort and, in many cases, money in more machines (and the larger electric bills). It might just be the extra encouragement they need to keep it up or keep making the effort to do more.

I reject your apparent suggestion that a person with 40 computers cannot have a 5 year badge because someone only has 1 computer. Maybe you thin that no one should be allowed to have more than one computer on the grid. The purpose of WCG is to crunch as many WU as possible as quickly as possible.
Do you think the scientists want their projects delayed because someone didn't buy all the computers themselves. WCG is about using unused computers, not about buying more computers.
The current badge system has NO labor costs as the system is driven by some excellent software.

As far as recognizing levels of contribution higher than two years goes, I've seen some good ideas in this thread. The Diamonds in the corners is good, but how about just a simple number in a corner for the number of years? i.e. Once you get to saphire, just put a white #3 in the corner once 3 years is reached, then 4, etc. Just another idea on how to do it. My main concern is that we don't add work to the WCG Techs making something like this happen. There are crunchers on the team that I am on that have more than 10 years on several projects. I think it would be nice to recognize their high level of contribution. They are doing all that out of their own pockets too.

Also, I think that it doesn't matter who owns / finances the computers. I know that with only 3 computers I can't return as much work as a business running 100 computers. I can't return as much work as a lot of individuals either! We don't all have the same resources for and/or dedication to WCG. However, the badges should reflect the amount of work done and that's all.

and you thankfully have badges to recognize the contribution you are making, PLUS you have badges just slightly above your current contribution levels that you get to work towards.