So the main purpose of this is
- Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
- Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.
Great Idea, but still in some point it will disregarded or doesn't matter. If you know what I mean.