The problem is that people mostly came to BTT forum not to lurk, but to earn some money.
I see here in this line thread some users with 100-200 merits with trash post history. Like really. The most merited users are not the ones who contribute to community, but the most dodgy/crafty ones.
So all in all it won't change anything. I bet there are already tons of "Merit-for-Merit" publics in Telegram or Discord.