Whoa, big crowd here. Good stuff.

I just finished plowing through Episode 1 care of Orange Box, and I have to agree that meager achievements are, at the very least, distracting. There shouldn't be any sort of in-game recognition for completing a level other than actually completing the level.

I appreciate the application of achievements toward recognizing ridiculous bits of gaming that serve no purpose to the plot. They should basically act as hidden side quests, in my opinion. I often times pick random objectives for myself in every game I play that has any semblance of immersion. Portal, for example, I began shooting down every camera I saw on instinct because I didn't like the way they followed me. I had absolutely no idea that there was an achievement for doing so. That was intensely gratifying that the developers figured, "some jackass is probably going to take the time to actually do this. Let's put something in to let him know we saw it coming." I freaking loved it. When I first played through HL2, I carried a shoe as far as the game woule let me in the first level. I did everything I had to, but I always went back and grabbed the shoe. If there had been an achievement for that back when I played it on Xbox, that would have been absolutely stellar. Similar to that is the Death From The Grave medal in Halo 3. Recognition of something that people do, that isn't necessarily useful or smart at all.

Again, there really shouldn't be any sort of visible recognition given for completing a level or killing x number of enemies. Those things are going to happen. It's silly to glorify it, far as I figure.