A character is nothing more than a collection of items, before you add the person behind it whose abilities you need to determine. Like almost everything else in the game, the Owl is a status symbol. If you see someone with a real expensive item, it's often an indication of someone's wealth and/or ability to acquire such an item, and unless you make a misinterpretation, it tells you nothing of how well they play based on how long they've had to learn their toon. Likewise the Owl should be a unique indicator of someone's experience since it would definitively tell you someones experience playing. As such it should be a non-tradeable item, but perhaps its ownership could be shared between toons on the same account.