What version of StackApplet are you using?

The badges are cached to reduced overhead on the server.

@Grant - don't create a new account - just use the same account to answer your question.

@Jeremy It also gives you entitlement. You earned the ability to comment, edit other peoples post, vote to close, create new tags. It also contributes to a motivation factor.

I've asked this on Webmasters Their answers should help us determine the best policy here.

@Jeremy - In the end it is. Well it's not that we don't trust the user, it's designed to discourage forum-like discussions which detract from the site. How Comments work for under rep. If you're the author of the question you can comment on any answer. If you're the author of an answer you can comment on your answer. Thereby allowing you to address each accordingly. In the end the SO team stands by their decision and don't plan to modify that limit any time soon.

Which isn't a detrimental issue - because we can migrate to meta.askubuntu.com