I played around with this idea and decided to use several icons for various functions/features and to place them all in a box below the avatar. Here's the code, where the icons are all from the famfamfam silk collection and the usergroup numbers may differ from yours. I also have a "postinfo" class to box the icons and I've moved a lot of the default or additional postbit information into the icons area, such as my photoplog images, blogs, staff page and subscriptions. Hopefully it makes sense.
Code:
<div class="postinfo" align="left" valign="middle">Info:
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 5,6,7)"><a href="staff.php"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/shield.png" alt="Staff member" border="0" /></a></if>
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 2,5,6,7)"><if condition="$show['lastactivity']"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/user_active.png" alt="Active member - $vbphrase[last_activity]: $post[lastactivitydate] at $post[lastactivitytime]" border="0" /></if></if>
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 29)"><if condition="$show['lastactivity']"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/user_inactive.png" alt="Inactive member - $vbphrase[last_activity]: $post[lastactivitydate] at $post[lastactivitytime]" border="0" /></if></if>
<a href="search.php?$session[sessionurl]do=finduser&u=$post[userid]"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/page_white_magnify.png" alt="$vbphrase[posts]: $post[posts]" border="0" /></a>
<a href="search.php?$session[sessionurl]do=finduser&u=$post[userid]&starteronly=1" rel="nofollow"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/folder_magnify.png" alt="$vbphrase[threads]: $post[threads]" border="0" /></a>
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 28) AND is_member_of($post, 34)"><a href="payments.php"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/award_star_gold_3.png" alt="Site supporter and contributor" border="0" /></a></if>
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 34) AND !is_member_of($post, 28)"><a href="http://www.galilean-library.org/index.php"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/award_star_silver_3.png" alt="Site contributor" border="0" /></a></if>
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 28) AND !is_member_of($post, 34)"><a href="http://www.galilean-library.org/payments.php"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/award_star_bronze_3.png" alt="Site supporter" border="0" /></a></if>
<if condition="$post[photoplog_filecount]"><a href="/gallery/index.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/photos.png" alt="Gallery images: $post[photoplog_filecount]" border="0" /></a></if>
<if condition="is_member_of($post, 35)"><a href="blog.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]"><img src="images/misc/usercp_icons/user_comment.png" alt="$vbphrase[blog_entries]: $post[entries]" border="0" /></a></if>
</div>
A screenshot is attached.