Alright. Why so critical, we're not even a week in to this thing? Here's my defense of the system...
Second Flaw: No limit how much merit a good post can accumulate
Let me give an example we have 2 person, legendary A and Junior member B, A and B both are giving good post to forum but A's post are better/more liked in forum. So everybody will give Merit to A and nobody will give merit to B. Now In this situation nobody will be advancing. (Apart from Merit Source, Merits are finite).
Fixing Second Flaw We can decide that how much Merit a single post can accumulate, let say 50
This is literally what the system is meant to accomplish - rewarding the best contributions made to the forum.
If you or anyone else creates a post that has an incredibly valuable amount of information it should continue to reward the author with merit. Bitcoin is a free market idea, so is the merit system. If you don't like the free market you should go back to using fiat!
Third Flaw: No clear guidelines on definition of a good/constructive post.
This is the most tricky question because every individual will have different taste. Let me take the example of the Dressing style, every body will have different style , that's why we never say to everybody to wear same clothes but some guidelines are issued on that what is ok/not ok to wear in professional world.
Fixing Third Flaw Below can be some parameter to decide on a good post.
a) Is the idea/content is really new.
b) How many individual might be benefited with the post or is it benefiting the whole forum.
c) Claims of post look genuine
Theymos, Lauda, Lutpin, and many others have tried (literally) for YEARS to communicate what a good, constructive post looks like. And like drips from a faucet or the mindless drone of cicada bugs, new members keep creating shit posts. They don't even try to look for the answer to their question before creating a thread about it (e.g., what's a signature campaign? what wallet should I choose? how does bitcoin work?). It's exhausting to read through.
Why the need to impose restrictions on what someone can gift their sMerits on?
I get that you're concerned people will gift their sMerits on posts that aren't worthy. But that's a problem that is solved naturally. Once the person has given away their sMerits, they are gone. The recipient benefits from the gain, but only once. And since both of these people likely aren't constructive posters they aren't likely to receive many more merits unless they up their game.
Fourth Flaw : Negative Trust score for abusing Merits
I saw some people got negative trust for abusing the Merit system, I think "Trust" is for trade/transaction purpose. Giving negative points in Trust for abusing Merit do not fit well.
Fixing Fourth Flaw A new score of "Merit Smartly Used" can be created, For abusing the Merit a negative score
can be awarded, A positive score can be given if somebody is first to Merit a post and post
accumulated the maximum Merit (let say 50)
The individual having a good score of "Merit Smartly Used" can be made "Merit Source " in
future
The trust system has been abused for a long time. People use negative trust as a weapon and will give it someone simply as a penalty for an argument in conversation (not having engaged in any actual transaction). It's a mostly meaningless system at this point.
Creating a third system (as you propose) just adds more management bureaucracy for the Moderators here and doesn't offer much more benefit. The goal isn't to reward how someone spends their sMerits, the goal is to provide an incentive for people to create great, meaningful posts if they want to enjoy the benefits of senior rank membership of this forum.
A great way to test your flaws and solutions is to put your account and activity through these tests. Have you given out more merit (than I or someone else believes you should have) for any single post? Have you made posts that meet the quality standards you state here? Have you given out merit "smartly"?