Hey gang,
We were also a bit disappointed in the badge issuer setting after we found it differentiates between the badge creator (individual, specific user who has created the badge), and the issuer (manually entered contact details that are not used to trigger any notifications). I created an enhancement request - https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-68485 - to create course specific notifications as a workaround (which is really what we were trying to achieve with the badge issuing).
Cheers,
Ant