Othermessage boards have pictures (cute ones) under the names.
Can we do that here?
And some message boards have big mean nasty ugly ones too. You forgot to mention that!
Can we? Yes.
May we? Not at present.
One of the issues is that the only way to reduce pictures is by post count.
Another problem is that for security uploads to the server have been disabled, and so a staff member would have to upload each picture if we allowed personalized pictures. If we just had a small set of pictures we would have to decide which ones to include, and posters would likely be clamoring to add “just one more avatar, please please please, I really like this one.”
Okay.
I figured there are too many posters anyway, not enough pictures to go around!
why can’t it just be a picture of Vin Diesel and be done with it?
Different faces of Vin Diesel for all posters. Who’s in?
I meant restrict pictures, not reduce pictures. i.e. if we allow avatars, we couldn’t set it up, for example, that only paying posters (if ever we went to some kind of subscription fee) could have an avatar. We could only say “if you have more than X posts, you can have an avatar.”
So post count does matter. 
Wouldn’t that invite a lot of drive by’s? Like this one?
Then there’s the question of bandwidth. Three hamsters died just thinking about the extra workload.
thats it!
Everyone gets a picture of a hamster in various positions!!
Seems like you could get around this by having an administrator edit each paying poster’s profile to add, say, 1,000,000 to their post count. Then everyone whose post count is >1,000,000 could have an avatar.
That being said, I personally find avatars silly, but if that’s what it takes to bring in the $$, then I’m all for it.
Actually, the debate about whether avatars should be permitted is a question of Hindu theology, and as such belongs in GD!! 
You have a one-track mind. That’s so cute!
zut - that would work, but it lacks elegance.
And handy could get an avatar for free, then.
Right?
You forgot about the following issues:
- Avatars which may or may not be under copyright, and which require the Staff to make continued judgement calls.
- Claims that one Member “stole” an avatar from another person/Board.
- Avatars which are subtly offensive to a certain group or sect.
- The battle over “animated vs. non-animated”
- People begging to go “just 1 itsy-bitsy pixel over” or “just one measly byte over” the Board limits.
handy would pay for an avatar. Maybe I can make one in sign language signing something ?