Is your discontent rooted in the actual character being used? Because in my opinion, the use of the bullet is to convey the exact same information as "(merlyn)" would, in far less space, and in a far more identifiable way.
Aside from the issue of HTML entity (non) portability, there are a limited number of HTML entities (or single letters) to go around. When those are gone, people would have to start using combinations. Ugh! Plus people then have to remember that • means merlyn, or {J} means "japhy". Better in this case to use a name.
I prefer to save space by using neither scheme, but I have no objection (other than space) to people using their login names. I used the name scheme in the past, and found that it didn't fit for me.