The current mods IMHO do a good job remaining unbiased (most of the time ), so I don't see that there would necessarily be an issue with "elitism"

Going by Memory's proposal, 275 post, 500 ap's, then leave it up to the mods to decide if those points were earned by being helpful or not. It's not too difficult for members that are on here regularly to know who contributes and who doesn't.

Of course, that's providing that the mods would care to be involved in something like that.