[peterverkooijen]

@thelandman, in my solution I use javascript to generate the username from the weird semi-optional xprofile fullname field, hide the username field on the form, use the email login plugin so members don’t need the username to log in, add more custom code to synchronize the fullname and the fullname-derived username to all the various similar fields in the database, etc. It’s messy, but somewhat workable.

The point is that it should not be that hard. Using full names, Firstname Lastname, should be part of the core. Seeing that none of this is fixed in 1.2+ and probably will never be fixed, I have no plans to upgrade to newer versions of Buddypress and will continue developing my version as a fork, more suited for professional and business use. If anyone is interested in working with me on that, please contact me directly.