Allowing people to set their own domain as handle is the way they are doing the verification (and they already went on the record about that). No cheeky icons needed, imho.

Qualia is "what it feels like" to experience something in first person.

In other words, it's what makes your experience subjective. What you learn from a first class experience that you could not have learned by reading/listening to others describe it.

I always say: "expect the worst, but hope for the best"

Imho, optimism is expecting things to go well, while hope is wishing for things to go well.

Being hopeful implies there's a challenge to overcome, and that there's uncertainty on the result. It's a more realistic viewpoint.