Well said, JD.
Someone show me a mobile strategy game with a better value than Subterfuge.. plz. Cuz there aren't many out there for only 10 bucks. Every time that I have purchased a medal I feel proud. Everybody wins when a medal is purchased (unless it's the "you made me angry medal). Even the one time that I did receive a negative medal, I couldn't be upset. That person cared enough about my actions in our game that he/she decided to support the devs by buying me a medal—no matter how petty their reasoning was.
I have even (irrationally) gotten to the point where when I see peeps in high rated games with multiple medals and 30+ games played I judge them for not having any patron medals. A patron medal tells me more about a player than any of the other medals do. This person cares about this game. Master Diplomat medals don't tell me shit, neither do Good Natured medals. Trustworthy Ally is nice-ish, though sometimes I view that as tit for tat kinda shit, peeps just helping each other out and being touchy-feely. The You Made Me Angry medals show me ballz, since I don't know the story, and the Master Tactician was invented for Braxo and he is still the only one I feel that is worthy of it. I have seen ayrm do some funky stuff too, so maybe there are two people that are deserving in my eyes. Speaking of ayrm, that guy had nearly 70 patron medals when I saw him last. Bananas.
My point is that none of the medals really dictate my behavior when meeting new players. The patron medals have more of an effect on me than any of the others, albeit a rather insignificant one. I respect these players and am more inclined to trust someone who cares enough about subterfuge to put their money where their chat screen is.