I like the badges, but hivebuzz has problems. It's bland, you just get the badge and nothing else. As you said, unlocking a feature would be exciting.
And I didn't get any notification when I got the dolphin badge so I didn't know my level changed for a while.
Right, imagine you get a badge and it does something new. And you aren't sure what it is, until you unlock it. Then the rumors spread about how to get it.....We could gamify this entire experience here.
And the problem: all this to happen needs many frontends devs to cooperate so these unlockable functions work everywhere. For the secret mechanics they even need offchain communication. @hivebuzz could do it with it's established presence but they have financial problems.