I'd like to link somewhere to explain openid (from my applications that support openid sign in), and it seems like openid.net would be the logical place.

But at openid.net, there is no clear, newbie-friendly explanation of how it actually works. I click "What is openID" and I get a whole page of text... that doesn't really answer my question.

I think we need another link at the top... like, "How does it work" maybe?

http://openidexplained.com is closer, but it looks a little embarrassing somehow.

Instead of identifying myself with:
http://example.net/john-doe

I would prefer:
john-doe@example.net

We could have a standard approach where identifier@domain translates to http://domain/identifier

I think it would give OpenID more human friendly feel than using URL format.

https://openid.net/ really shouldn't be using an MD5-hashed cert months after Sotirov presented his research demonstrating the flaws. Perhaps SHA-1 with an eye to moving to SHA-2 as soon as practical and SHA-3 as soon as it's finalized.

The ability to add custom avatars for different IDs to further customize OpenID.

I'd like to see a "Do I have an OpenID" link or tool as a prominent option on the landing page. While your second main option for "everyone" tells me I might have an OpenID and not know it, when I click that link it tells me how to USE my OpenID, but not how to find out if I have one. If there is a link like this somewhere, it wasn't prominent/obvious enough for me to find easily.