Where are showsignatures/showavatars settings stored?
 

... per user.

In other words.. when a user goes to their usercp and elects not to view avatars/signatures, where in the database is this stored?

Edit: OMG, I think I found it (options column in the user table). That makes it very difficult for me to alter. Can anybody give me some tips?

I *could* just setup some custom profile fields and use those... but then a user has 2 separate options to configure for the same result.

I'm not sure if this may help with whatever you are wanting to do but...

in your UserCP, under Import and Mainainance > Execute SQL Query, the drop down menu there will allow you to set all users to view or not view avatars or sigs or many things. There are a bunch of pre-loaded queries there.