Certifications are fine with me, I think most of us will agree level definitions are ambiguous, but they have to be, you cannot give a formal procedure to characterize that kind of thing. One tries to interpret those levels and decide whether some of them apply to a given user the best one can.
I have found most users do not provide enough information to be certifiable, maybe they are not really interested in the certification thing, in that case generally one does not certify them.
Then there are experienced programmers that do not report work in free software, so they do not fit in any category in my opinion.
Certifiers know the rules are somewhat flexible and certified users know he is being certified from a subjective point of view. If we try to be fair, I think that can work. That's why I participate so much in this process.