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I've found a simple way of doing this without any template edits.

To make a member appear as Staff, they have to be explicitly made a Moderator (or Administrator).

However, if you don't add them to the Moderator (or Administrator) user group or give them any permissions, their current user title and permissions remain as they are and the only difference is they show up as Staff.

The only drawback is those members will be able to see the Moderator Toolbar but they won't have access to any reports or any inline mod tools.

If you make someone an Administrator without adding them to the group or giving them any explicit permissions, they will have access to the server error logs and caches but that's all.

I posted the full details here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/make-other-members-appear-as-staff-and-create-secret-moderators.7987/