Re: the connotations of "status" -- for my part, I care more about having some label for the thing we're talking about than I care what the label is.

Do you have a preferred term?

In some contexts one can talk about "rank," or "privilege," or "juice," or "clout," or even "wealth," but I find them all too specialized for general use. I use "status" precisely because it can apply just as readily to high-school students trying to avoid ostracism as prison inmates trying to avoid assault as poverty-stricken peasants trying to avoid starvation, which is useful when trying to talk about the thing they all have in common.