The main thrust of this thread was about providing granular access to items on the Admin menu and yes, that is scheduled for Cambrian. My advice was and is to make do with the current system as it is, because it will be far easier to implement the changes. Anything customised now would simply have to be unravelled again beforehand. In the meantime, third party modules provide most of the useful stuff and with much greater control - see WorkControl's usermanager for example - 4 admin modules in one and with finer control to boot.
Regarding the rankings and such... I seriously doubt that the social networking aspect of Cambrian will amount to anything more than a nod in the direction of the Facebook api, or something like that. I would suggest writing up a workable system and post it to Gemini as an enhancement for the DNN user profile.
There is much that can be added to the profile and much has been discussed out here in the forums. For a start, many people would like to be able to view a member's content via their profile, and I would like to see profiles extended with profile groups, as this would allow clan members or friends to create, join and leave arbitrary groups, or in a business scenario, join and leave business groups, without necessarily altering security at the admin level. The user profile page really needs to be greatly enhanced. Profiles should have links to forum posts, image gallery uploads, articles, links.. friends.. etc. and all DNN modules should be able to plug into it easily. The profile could even have a personal module pane where a limited set of simple modules could be placed and edited by the particular member. All these things would be nice.. I don't think any of it is on the cards, but I'd like to hear if anyone knows more.
In the meantime, some modules, e,g, Active Forums have ranking, though it's pretty basic.
Rob