Groups integration

Perhaps a combination of OG and role by groups would be an adequate workaround. I think there are more than one solution for adding a unique roll whenever a group is joined and removing it once membership is ended. This should allow for the badge functionality you want in the meantime.

I too would love to have this function -- I can't imagine having roles for all the groups and subgroups that I have.

Using the module Rules (possibly with tokens) would make this possible.

There's a related post here. They are talking about assigning roles. You can do the same thing, but assign badges instead:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/20843

The problem with using Rules the way that thread describes is that you need to know in advance what each group will be, when users will be creating them "organically." What would be ideal is a small add-on to OG that would let the group creator/admin select (or even upload) a badge for the group. I'm not sure which project this request should go to, however.

Patches are welcome

What I'm currently working on is adding a small CCK image field to groups, using a view to collect the badges, and displaying that in Author Pane. I haven't quite got it working yet.