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[A-Man]

Look at my post history. While my English may have been broken, I almost always contributed to the conversation in some way, despite very short posts.
It is perfectly possible for a newcomer to write reasonable posts.
Also when they select a custom avatar the avatar actually fulfils a purpose as you can actually recognize the person from it.

Of course. I never said that it's a rule that a newcomer will have first non-contributing posts.

First of all 4/6 of these have an avatar which makes the statement "the older usually don't care" statistically false (at least for this sample).
Second they still have plenty of short posts just like any other user.

Yes, they do now, but I am sure you or anyone who posted there recalls and can confirm those didn't have avatars for at least the first couple of days after they joined.
The point I want to make is not that those always write long enough posts, but to counter your argument that "one is more likely to read shorter posts from newcomers" (note that I was careful in choosing my wordings, as I chose read because the not-so-worthwhile posts are often disposaled first and fairly fast by LFE's team of moderators). The reason I listed these examples is to show examples that actually shows that there are newcomers which enter the forum with a first post of quality.

I do not see how this (outside of pure speculation (speaking of which)) would be more likely to inform newcomers that they can customize their avatar any more than a no avatar would.
If you look at user titles everybody has one, but you cannot change it yourself.

Because you only consider changing a thing when you see it. You may say that one can reach the same conclusion from seeing other members', but you seeing yourself's is sure more confirming. Especially if you're coming from a community where avatars are locked initially (regardless of how likely that is to be the case, it still counts. I've been into a forum where avatars are exactly locked for a lower class of members).

Until right now, if I may take what you wrote as a confirmation, I couldn't be sure whether its that I can edit my user title and just didn't find where I could do that, or if I can't change it in the first place. Thanks for the information!

I am not in a position to watch the video you linked to right now, but I will try to do so when I get the chance.

A poll would do.