The question was about merits, this being a merit-related thread. How does the merit system affect your speech? You can't seem to come up with anything so I think it's safe to assume that it doesn't.
Does the merit system not affect the mode of speech on this forum at all according to you? Then you must agree that it is better to abolish it. For it was installed exactly with the goal to do that; affecting forum speech.
If you know who's paying for my signature let me know. They seem to have missed a few years of payments.
Not all 'whoring out' of signatures has direct payments involved.
Merits may affect shitposters aiming at higher ranks. It's still not a free speech issue in any conceivable way. They can still post their shit. If we follow your fallacy we should just close the forum because any rules can be twisted this way.
For example, you can still insinuate that I get paid for my signature and there is fuck all that merits can do about it.