Being able to point to several thousand good edits on Wikipedia under your verified real name might be real handy when applying for college or for a job. Not right now, but someday when Wikipedia is even more of an institution than it is now. Of course pointing to a bunch of immature "13 year old" edits may not help.
Fred
this causes problems for younger Wikipedians in that they could never have a degree at the age of 15, or whatever.