well i know that feel, since one of my friend had the situations almost same like you ( he only need to wait another weeks more to become Sr. Member)
To me it looks like the ones that already has a high rank likes merit because they got a great number of free merit and also don't need to rank up.
While us new members don't have any merit and hardly gets any even if we post great quality posts.
To conclude:
- High ranked members like merit
- Low ranked members do not
i really do agree with this , man when i saw my friend reactions after the merit systems come , it's really priceless lol.
After all we all know this merit systems just like a "like" on facebook, an "upvote/karma" on reddit.
The different is merit has limit , AND THIS IS THE PROBLEMS here why it's hard to get merit
Well it is hard to earn it because we are at the early stage of the merit point system. What you said is true that merit point is limited, but the circulatory amount of it will be increased in a fast rate. How come so? Let me break it for you.
If 'merit sources' can make maximum 200 smerit point out of nothing (I don't know the exact number of how many points a 'source' can make per month), then that 200 point can be used up to 397-398 point (200+100+25+12+6+3+1=397 points) and if we have 40 'merit sources' then it will be up to 16000 points of smerit to distribute to other members. It is only from 'merit sources', all member with high rank has smerit that can be given too even thought it wont be replenished per month basis like 'merit sources' do, and if the maximum number of smerit from 'sources' is increased, we can see even higher number to be distributed among all the worthy posters.