(A) People who don't get the gold star may feel slighted and may reduce their contributions or even become irritants.
I agree with you in concept but, truth be known, that's the way life works.
Not everybody will get a "gold star" for their actions no matter how we establish the criteria. There will always be those with gold stars and those without.
So do we stop recognizing and rewarding good behavior and refrain from awarding gold stars for fear of offending or ostracizing those who don't get them? My feeling is no.
Offer those who we deem Ambassadors the vaunted gold star. Those who don't earn one can either change their behavior for a chance to earn one in the future or just drop out of the process. And if they become "irritants" then there are ways already established of dealing with that.
And not everybody is eager to become an Ambassador. In a PM to one of the top candidates for this position in the TS/S Forum, I basically said that should this position ever become available, I'd like to nominate them for it.
And they wrote back saying, basically, "Thanks but no thanks". They weren't comfortable with any special recognition for what they consider common courtesy.
I have no problem with this proposal from the aspect of potentially alienating those who don't receive the gold star. Not everybody wants it and certainly not everybody will earn it. But that holds true for nearly any title we might consider here on FT.