When viewing my profile in-game, it shows my real name next to my handle. I understood that the bullshit "Real ID" concept had been dismissed due to community outrage. Is this not the case within the game? Is my real name revealed to other players or is this only displayed on my profile to myself so that they can reinforce the threat that we know who you are?

Your real name is only displayed to players on your friends list of people who you've added though Facebook or by using an e-mail address. 

From what I understand of Real ID on Battle.net, your real name will only be visible to people you designate as Real ID friends.  You can still add player names to your friend's list and only your player name will be shown on their list, and vice versa.  The big outcry (and the portion Blizzard backed away from) regarding Real ID was the posting of real names on WoW forums.  In Starcraft, using Real ID is still optional, same as WoW.

Right, which is why when I see my real name in my profile, it instinctively suggests to me that they backed off of that effort so quickly because they used it as a sacrificial pawn. Cave in to community outcry over privacy on the forum identity while still maintaining it for the online play. But, as you mention, hopefully that isn't actually the case.
 
It is still a miserable precedent as clearly they're inching their way toward full identification (if they weren't, then rather than using Real ID they would just allow you to bind other accounts to your Blizzard account, the same way you bind your Twitter account to Facebook and so on). If not now, then later. Why I need to know your real life name to play you, I have no idea. The only people that will care about your real identity are those who wish to use it for abusive purposes. Go figure. :/

" Your real name is only displayed to players on your friends list of people who you've added though Facebook or by using an e-mail address.  "

" When viewing my profile in-game, it shows my real name next to my handle. I understood that the bullshit "Real ID" concept had been dismissed due to community outrage. Is this not the case within the game? Is my real name revealed to other players or is this only displayed on my profile to myself so that they can reinforce the threat that we know who you are? "

" Bottom line:  Don't add people to your real id friends list if you don't want them to know who you are.  Just add them to your regular friends list. "

The systems a bit confusing in how it's presented in the game and it's a little cheeky how it tries to steer you towards Real ID instead of 'Character Friends'. Speaking of which, what the heck is with the character code. It's nowhere near as long as the Wii friend code but it seems like an unnecessary thing to have when you could just block or deny friend requests you didn't want.

" When viewing my profile in-game, it shows my real name next to my handle. I understood that the bullshit "Real ID" concept had been dismissed due to community outrage. Is this not the case within the game? Is my real name revealed to other players or is this only displayed on my profile to myself so that they can reinforce the threat that we know who you are? "

I imagine they are trying to add the friend code to stop Starcraft 2 becoming like WOW with its millions of spam messages and invites.