No real quick fix for this. What you can do without hacking the kernel is hide the username form element in the signup and set the value to be the attribute_id ("user"+ attribute_id might be better esp. if there is a length limit on usernames)
I actually had this in mind and I started to test it out, I think is the cleanest fix for my problem at this stage because it only involves overriding templates as opposed to hacking.
I'm assuming I'll need to override the Admin templates too?
i have a request from a client wanting us to remove passwords and only want users to have to register/login with an username.
is their a clean way to go about this? or is this some dirty kernel hacking?
regarding no username... i had a similar request over a year ago from another client and what i did i guess is a bit dirty.. but i made the user field hidden and on the onSubmit method via javascript copied over the email into the user account field(hidden field)..
this way username and email was always the same and easy to remember.