Clinton is likely to get some of those superdelegate votes for free simply because she is, unlike Sanders, a member of the party, and a case can be made that the leaders of the party should not cast their superdelegate votes for an independent candidate. But I agree that there would be consequences if the superdelegate vote were to reverse the popular choice.

EDIT (correction): Sanders was an independent until 2015, and is now a Democrat, so my point does not apply.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would argue that your point does still apply. Sanders converted to a Democrat to be available to their platform, but everyone who knows him knows he's not a Democrat. As such, the Democratic party doesn't get any of the fund-raising runoff that a party candidate usually generates.

It is that funding that gets used for other purposes, like securing the House, the Senate, etc., etc., and as such, regardless of his current registration, Sanders is a party outsider, and a victory for him is not as big a win for the party as a Hillary, Biden, Kerry or even Jim Webb win would be.

True. To nitpick, technically Bernie isn't independent anymore.

Vermont doesn't have party registration, so there isn't a clear distinction between being a Democrat or and Independent. The closest available option to registering as a Democrat is running in the Democratic primary, which Bernie has done.

I stand happily corrected.