And names like "The Laughing Man", "NetCat" and "NeonSamurai" have all been claimed and not logged in to since shortly after they were registered.
Some of those may -- or may not -- have been intentional, on the part of the mods. It's not at all uncommon for RPG or wargame forums to have admins snatch up "in universe" names like that to use them, down the road someday, for cool official stuff. That may or may not be the case here (I genuinely don't know)...but to me it's a non-issue.
What DOES suck is swiping someone's known forum handle, like happened to Lurker. It's BS, plain and simple, and (just my opinion, here) if the mods PM that handle and no one answers in X amount of time with a good reason to keep the name, the account should be wiped to Lurker can have his friggin' name back.
With any internet handle, there's always the chance it's some pop culture reference and, as far as I know, "LurkerOutThere" is from a tv show I'm not familiar with, or something. I know it's not impossible for someone else to like
Thieves World or Classical history, so there's a chance someone could be "Critias" on here without meaning to poach my name.
A slim chance, but a chance.