Give it some time.  No one knows how any of this will work out.  This merit thing was basically a nuclear bomb on the forums to discourage shitposters and seems to have had an immediate 'desired' effect but no one really knows the full fallout.  Personally I am going to ignore merits for at least two months and have faith that it'll work as intended.  Without drastic changes to this merit system my bet is that Elon Musk will make it to Mars before some current hero members make it to legendary.