[steveklabnik]

> Both of those things sound like all the more reason why labels should've been the preferred approach here

Sure, what I'm trying to describe is the various differences so we can speculate why they may have made the decisions that they did. "more flexibility is always better" is a valid choice, but it may not be theirs.

> That seems reasonable (but IMO questionably necessary) for handle changes, but rather unreasonable for display name changes.

I call this the "jaboukie problem," and it's effectively necessary for this kind of feature. Jaboukie Young-White is a comedian who, every time Twitter verified him, would change his account to impersonate another, and then make an inflammatory post "as them." The blue check lent legitimacy to this. It was hilarious, don't get me wrong, but it does undermine trust in the feature.