I've felt the same way for a long time.  Something other than the name floating over your head to help identify you in situations where multiple people show up in the same armor would be very welcome.

It seems to me that with all the skins available in the game, it wouldn't be difficult to add emblems to armor to help them stand out.  Using dies to help tint your color different colors would be welcome as well.

All of that said, I tend to play Minecraft solo, or with my kids (Who are three, so needless to say, they do not put a lot of thought into anything except "hit this block until it breaks" or "Put this block here." And since they started playing with me, I've mostly been playing in "peaceful" to avoid the occasional creeper visit.) So there's rarely any call for differentiating our appearances.

And while I've seen some incredible mods online that allow players to do some really neat and amazing things, I own the Xbox 360 version, so I don't have access to those mods.

Now, you've got me thinking about Minecraft again, . . . I blame you for the dozens, if not hundreds of hours I'm inevitably going to spend playing it in the coming weeks.    I've got a Corellean Corvette (FarStar Style) that needs completion.

Recently, I tend to use torches to light my cave expeditions, placing them frequently enough to prevent mobs from spawning in my wake (I'll usually bring a single stack of torches with me when I leave assuming I have the resources available.  However, when I exit the cave in question, I tend to collect my torches in my wake, walling off tunnels and leaving a single torch where the walled off tunnel is to make it easier to locate again later should I desire to return.

For my houses, the last couple that I have built, I've built a glass tube through the middle, running down through all the floors of my home, then place a lava block at the top so it runs down every story of the house.   Makes a nice bright light source, looks neat, and just requires a little glass to contain/make it safe.

But then, I like my locations brightly lit, not dark and moody, . . .

There are a lot of games that have stuck with me over the years, games that I come back to play time and time again, but if I had to choose just a single game it would have to be Fallout 2.  I think I've played that one more than any other game I've ever owned, and I find myself coming back to play it again about once a year, or whenever I get the urge to find some new way to approach the game.

So many great games that I've played over the years, . . . .

Honorable mentions (In no particular order): 
-Castlevania: Symphony of the night
-Iron Tank
-Final Fantasy (Yes, the first one)
-Diablo 2
-The Legend of Zelda
-The Guardian Legend
-Dragon Warrior (Again, the first one)
-Shadowgate
-Command & Conquer 2: Red Alert
-Fallout 1
-Minecraft
-Fallout: New Vegas
-Arcanum
-Street Fighter 2
-Suikoden
-Zork

For me, there are a number of factors to consider:

If I created the thread in question, yes, I will make sure to read every post, and even go to the effort of trying to reply any time I feel I have something worthwhile to contribute or add to what someone else said.

If its a subject that catches my attention however, then it depends on how large the thread it.  If its only a page or two worth of posts since the last time I posted, then yes.  However, if the thread is excessively deep and I've missed +3 pages worth of posts since the last time I checked in, then I will make an effort to read at least the last couple of pages worth of posts before posting.

Lets face it, sometimes a thread can be dozens, or even hundreds of pages deep.  And I simply cant bring myself to wade through that much content to make a post.

When the resources are readily available, I'll build a cobblestone generator early in the game to save myself the potential dangers of digging for resources or getting caught outside after dark.  But once I have some half way decent gear, I will usually take it down and start looking for my own resources.

I actually like using lava for lighting.  I can place a single block at the top of a building with a tube of glass reaching down through the house.  It makes a good light source, and it only takes a single block to light a  lot of space that way.

I'll use lava to build myself a portal, usually somewhat early in a game.

As several people have said, lava makes a great defensive mechanism.  I like to build a retractile floor in the entrance of some of my homes.   Hallway only one space wide, then lava a couple of spaces below that with the entire trap area surrounded with obsidian, . . . just to add to the futility of the situation.  Its an alarmingly effective way to deal with hostiles

When mining, I'll commonly dig near lava to get it to flow, then keep it running in a ditch as I mine.  Its effectively a free light source and it let me reserve a lot of my torches that I would otherwise use.  You just have to be a little bit careful with it so you don't let it flow into your digging space.

I used to use it to create beacons of a sort  for myself, but when beacons were added to the game, I started using those instead (I have the xbox 360 version of the game.)

Otherwise, I really don't do much with lava other than ignore it and try not to do anything that might get me burnt.

Glad you liked my favorites.  I'm a pretty active gamer, and I've played a lot of systems over the years, but those three have really become my staples.

Funny stories?  If you enjoy roleplaying stories, take a moment to check out this little gem (Some stories are better than others, my favorite is "Natural Born Gamers"): http://www.tabletitans.com/tales

I was actually planning to post a story or two of my own when I made my last post, but I was a little crimped on time, so I opted not to.  I'll try to remedy that now:

I'll tell about our game from Tuesday.  Me and one of my regular gamers got together on Tuesday in the hopes of getting a few hours of gaming in.  Since it was just the two of us, we opted for Battletech (We often play miniatures games when there are only two or three of us able to get together)

NOTE, probably only funny if you play Battletech. 

We opted for mirrored mechs (Same on both sides, 2/3 pilots.) as a quick and easy way to balance the sides instead of each of us building a lance from scratch.  The lance was as follows:

Shade Maker (A 100 ton custom mech.  A missile platform capable of putting 75 missiles in the air at once and enough armor to make an Atlas sweat.)
Zeus
Marauder
Roadrunner (A 20 ton custom mech.  Capable of 15 speed with only a machine gun for weaponry.  They make great spotters for missile platforms as they can get close easily, and can move far enough to make them very hard to hit.  Including both armor and internal, it could suffer only 30 points of damage before being completely destroyed, no matter where you hit it.)

At this point, both of us set up our mechs, both trying to out maneuver each other.

I won initiative, and my opponent's Shade Maker ended exactly 15 spaces in front of my Roadrunner.  I decided to do something daring right from the start.  I decided to charge the Shade Maker with my Roadrunner in the hopes of doing +30 points of damage to my opponent's heaviest mech on the table (Besides, while useful for spotting, Roadrunners rarely do much, if any, damage during our games, even when playing with lighter mechs.)

Since my other mechs had moved to flank and were in places they couldn't be hit, my opponent opted to fire on my Roadrunner with everything he had.  With the firing solutions he had, everything was a 10-12 to hit.  Needless to say, I didn't figure it was likely that I would be hit more than once, maybe twice.

He started rolling dice, managing to hit me with all but two of his weapons through the entire barrage.  When it was all said and done, he had don't over 130 points of damage to my poor little Roadrunner in that single round, utterly destroying the poor little thing.

For the rest of the game, we joked about the mech's pilot, who we referred to as "Splat."

My misfortunes did not end there however.

Two rounds later, I had got my Marauder into the rear flank of both my opponent's Zeus and his Marauder.  Seeing a chance to carve them up from behind, and soaking up the worst of what he can throw at me with my front armor, I got ready to unload everything I had on the rear of his Zeus.  At the same time, he directed his Shade Maker and Zeus's attacks on my Marauder, his own Marauder opting to take a couple of shots at my Zeus. 

Shots were fired, and the first shot from my opponent landed a center torso crit on my Marauder, sure enough, he rolled a full 12 for crit locations.  In his first shot, he gutted my engine, killing my Marauder, with me only making minor hits in return. 

Meanwhile, a lucky shot at my Zeus resulted in a head shot, gutting my sensors.  To top that off, I failed my consciousness roll and crashed hard.  By the time I regained my feet, his entire lance had homed in on my Zeus and were pounding it mercilessly.

Needless to say, the rest of the game was a rout.  My Zeus regained its feet, coming out swinging (And missing, a lot), but ultimately went down three rounds later. 

My Shade Maker took a pounding for a long time, backing itself into a corner to protect its rear, but four enemy mechs, with a combined firepower of about twice of mine, and at least two and a half times the tonnage, there was little doubt as to the outcome at that point. 

When my Shade Maker finally went down, I'd barely done enough damage to the entire enemy lance to scratch the paint.  The game was a ton of fun, even if my dice rolls were somewhere between frustrating and hilarious.

When it was all done, I informed my opponent that I'd avenge myself the next time we played, then grabbed us both another Dew before we both sat around for about an hour joking and reminiscing about the game we had just played.

I've done a lot of RP online over the years, but I haven't been terribly active with online RP for a while now.

That said, this: http://www.myth-weavers.com/ might be a good place to start.  Its a fairly active RP site.  (I've never used the site for RP, but I've used the site to host character sheets for games on other sites before.  The site HAS been recommended highly to me on several occasions though.)  They host a wide range of games there (Mostly Pathfinder/D&D, but a little bit of almost everything else as well.), and it has a very active community, so it would probably be a good place to start.  Sorry I cant be of more help than that.

Top three pen & paper games?
1. Star Wars (WEG D6)
2. World of Darkness (The original one, not the new stuff)
3. Pathfinder (Like D&D, only the classes are actually balanced)