I have a few suggestions to make nameplates legible:

The ability to restore borders for nameplates. This is important because I personally find the contrast between nameplates and the text inside of them to be a bit flimsy, for both non-friend and friend variations. Also, reducing the transparency of the nameplates doesn't exactly make the names more visible unless the place is extremely dark. This means I lose the text to the environment, or lose the text to the nameplate itself visually.

The ability to shift the colours of the nameplate in particular (maybe specific nameplate only colourblind shift, or determine if the nameplate is affected by it) would be good. This way, it would make it slightly easier to determine whether or not someone is a friend. Or even a developer, if you still wanna keep that separate.

The ability to stack nameplates ontop of eachother. This might actually cause more confusion but some people might appreciate the reduction of overlap. That's also why I want the restoration of nameplates since they obscure eachother easily. I can see someone using it, but not myself. Consider it a good idea.

By no means is this asking for a return to a visible rank system, but it was terribly important and pretty much the main reason I could play without issue. Nameplates are a significant part of playing the game and socializing, especially in places where everyone has a new avatar they designed daily.

... If you're looking for a way to monetize it, it would make it completely possible to have a VRC+ exclusive legacy nameplate by doing so as well. I'm not sure if you'd want that, but maybe?

I'm sure this may be in the wrong Canny board, but poke me if that's the case.