I gave up using a "handle" online when I got into this thing called adulthood. To me the whole nickname thing works much better in things like CB radio, but in a text format they're rediculous because people use symbols and capital letters in an unreadable way. I sometimes look at the driver list in LFS and think of drivers not by their name, but as "The two white characters and four red characters driver", or just "him".
In the STCC all drivers have to use a real (or fake but real sounding) name, because it is a league with commentary coverage. I've read race reports from other series where LfAn8io beat UXXhax8532 and they're almost impossible to read the reports.
In terms of pickup racing I couldn't care less what people call themselves, but I think any semi-serious league should have proper names, even if they aren't real, but they should be real enough that when spoken or writen they make some sense.
BeXorR053