If it's a choice between the two I'd definitely go with the avatars. I turn sigs off anyway.
Is there any chance of avatars being enabled for users? I think it would be a nice addition to the forum, personally. But seeing they're not enabled now makes me suspect they're unwanted. However, I think avatars are definitely preferable to signature image attachments as those are more difficult to control and generally take a lot more page space than an avatar would. Thoughts? Ideas?
If it's a choice between the two I'd definitely go with the avatars. I turn sigs off anyway.
Well, I think signature text is all fine as it can be used to specify hardware, distro, kernel, funny/relevant quotes, etc. Images are an entirely different deal and best put in a fixed-size space.
We're still in the process of evaluating the forum features and server resources. We will probably enable avatars some time in the near future. Also sig text is fine, but I don't believe we'll be allowing image sigs. But when any of that happens, we'll be sure to let you know!