I don’t think I an, iskitto I personally don’t like making chances to the core WordPress files. Whatever changes you do make, keep tedious notes of. The reason is that when you upgrade your version of WordPress, you’ll lose all these changes to the core files.
I think what you really wanna do is elevate their aesthetic status, not necessarily their roles … their capabilities to edit posts, etc. .. you just wanna elevate their status (beginner, forum member, senior member, etc.) …
Sorry, I don’t know a WP solution to this. There must be a plugin for this.
Take a look at this:
Role Scoper … it gets very good reviews, although 0 support threads have been answered.
But again, that deals with roles, not a user’s status.