There seems to be some miscommunication here and I'm not sure where it might be.
Kremmen: "...others who've been shafted by this (IMHO) stupid rule?" Where the heck are you getting information about some rule, that i'm not even aware exists. "shafted"? If you'll read the flow of this thread, you'll see that a member ks_8999 asked about changing his user name and I did so - all without any fuss or muss. In fact, I've changed more than a few dozen other members requests with no big deal.
As well, to the post of tennisbum, i actually PMed this member after noticing their comment regarding a change on Oct. 8 and have received nothing back from the member if they really did want to change.
RJB: I'm not showing a request from you. Now, that doesn't mean you did not send it. If sent by email, it may have got caught up in spam or i did not catch the note because the address was unknown to me. I can't search PM to see if it came in that way and not knowing when you sent in your request, just can't do much. However, as noted, you don't even have to ask nicely, that is not a requirement. We do research to see if the new request might be too similar to another member, etc. but it's not that big a deal since we moved to vB two years ago. Before that, it was nightmare. I would suggest just letting me know again what you are interested in - it's really that simple.
stl8r and ropmot141 - rather than but in to someone else's incorrect assumption that there is some rule that you can't change your user name, why not simply send me your request? I usually don't hang out here in the Technology forum and normally will not see these posts, so direct contact with me is best.
What some of you may be confused with is the reply by one of the tech guys. You know tech guys - they only see the word in bytes and bits.... just joking a little here. Best thing to always do is contact me personally since at the end of the day, these types of individual decisions are handled by me. Now, if you send something in and don't hear back - send in another reminder. I'm finding that spam filters have changed the way we try and communicate.
I do hope this clears things up and thanks for asking the questions and for your support of FlyerTalk.