In accordance to the suggestion of OP, having a CM as a merit source does not have a downside IMO. These CMs do weekly reviews on their participants' post history so they are suitable for being a MS. Well obviously not all are qualified. A good MS for me should be yahoo, atriz, darkstar, lutpin and other CMs whom had established their worth as a CM. I am not saying that all of them should be MS but imagine one/some of them being a MS.
Lutpin is a merit source, and so am I, so there's no need to imagine it. I do award merits to high quality posts I see while doing post counting.