Now that [setting bounties on other peoples questions is planned](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1409/how-about-making-it-possible-to-set-up-bounty-on-someone-elses-question), I think it would make sense to separate the indication that a bounty has been awarded from the checkmark. (create a separate icon). Then the issue about auto-acceptance of answers could finally disappear, as the bounty and bounty icon could be automatically awarded instead of acceptance.

Additional possibilities that are **non-core**. It is not actually necessary to implement these possibilities, rather they are just listed as examples of what else would be possible once bounties were split off:

* Multiple bounties would become possible, with the proviso that one person cannot receive over 500 points from answering a single questions.
* 15 points of the bounty could be kept separate for the question owner to award