Yes that is the basic version.
Even if you do what you say and of course i did that first the Badge is still being called from the s2member system to the server and by that puts load on the server.
That call to server is the biggest load of all server calls from s2member and if you ask me thats also why some people are complaining about s2member slowing down their site.
I AM TALKING ABOUT TOTAL REMOVAL.
GET Female-stripper-3-e1351544881928-194×300.jpg 17.8 KB 83ms
GET s-badge.php?v=1&site_url=http://getstripper.com s2member.com 110 B 1.68s
GET addthis_widget.js#pubid=cheapweb s7.addthis.com 2.7 KB 11ms
So you see out of these 3 calls and even if the badge is the smallest file it TAKES A LONG TIME