Its basically alot of work to add a custom avatar for one person by hand, so we dont do it anymore.
Thank you for the response and the explanation, yet this still doesnt really seem fair to those people who put in the time back before the change. Can we not implement the facility to add our own custom avatars (based on post count conditions or whatever restrictions you deem fit) as is available on many forums as a basic facility?
I know its only an avatar and not a huge deal; and not to bang my own drum here too much but I really felt I earnt that custom avatar before the change- I made and supported 2 quite large mods alone and racked up the required posts by answering question after question in the HOI2 modding help section. (I could probably get quite a few forum users to confirm that claim as well by the way)