I think post count is kind of redundant with join date, and I rely more on join date. Some people post very seldom, but tend to post more relevantly than new members who just spam Mish Mash and (insert terrible developmental deck here) threads. Not that join date is the end-all be-all either, but it gives me more of an idea if the person's been reading for a while and more likely to have experience with the format.

If people think there is a serious merit to the idea of Adepts existing solely as a special status to encourage good posting, then I think it's obvious that the role of 'super-adepts' or some such as proposed by Spatula also has merit. There are certainly enough active and highly competent members that wouldn't mind the 'task' of guiding the DTB or a special 'Buzz' forum.