Autolink @username to the user identity/profile [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
@<name> comments should link to the named person’s profile (like twitter)

Rampant throughout the system is the adopted usage @SoAndSo to target a user. However when that user changes their username this info becomes irrelevant.

I'm suggesting a feature to maintain relevance of these by autolinking to underlying user id. It doesn't have to happen in real-time; the system could scan for @soAndSo designations at its leisure and automatically link to the underlying user id for robustness and permanent association.

This could also pave the way to future endeavours like associating "incoming" and "outgoing" information with a user. More semantic data at the very least.

Note: This differs from this other meta request which is about linking @user to comments.

Kinks that would have to be worked out:

• Might be interesting to provide the user a prepopulate select list of available @items skimmed from the page for selection (client-side).
• if the system asynchronously autolinks, the user may have changed their user id in the meantime to something different or even to mimic somebody else.
• misspellings - could be skipped instead of deciphered. People would have incentive to spell them correctly in light of this feature.

Example:

Answer 1

Hmm. I can't see how this would be useful. If I want to open leppie's profile, I look for his original comment and click the link there.

It happens often to me that I want to learn more about a user, but usually that is when I read one of their comments, not a reaction to it.

And it would add a lot of visual clutter. My tendency is "nay".

Edit: My tendency is still more "Nay" than "Yea" but the OP does make a good point I hadn't thought of. See the comments.