I understand what you are saying, but I am not sure why. If speed is the issue...and thats what I keep hearing the most (other than those "visually artistic" FT'ers), how would this help?

"Joe" uploads an 250k avatar to www.joe.com...which could be hosted on a server in Botswana, Kenya over land lines. When loading the page, in addition to pulling all the many existing images & ads from FT, you also have to pull this one image (size unknown and uncontrollable) from another server of unknown quality. FT would also have no control over the the image itself which could be potentially offensive. How is this better?

Again if speed is the issue, what difference does the hosted location make? If anything it makes it (potentially) much worse. Flyertalk now has multiple servers so avatars are not going to make a speed difference serving the page and the extra bandwidth consumed would be very small.

I also agree that like smilies, you should be able to mute them if desired.

I just think it's sad to see FT purchase a "Lexus quality" forum system, then not use all the bells & whistles it provides. Isnt voting part of this new forum system? Why not use it to find out what people really think...(or is that disabled as well... )