On the plus side, they could incentivize posters to try harder to make quality posts. It could be a good system in some respects.
It already started to have that effect I noticed after theymos's implementation of the Merit 'system'. In some cases it's very obvious that people are posting in a very forced manner to obtain a Merit or two, but at least they put time and effort into their posts, and that's something we can all be happy with, and especially so when we're a few months away from now. I am glad that theymos allocated his precious time to getting this Merit system up and running -- people for so long were complaining about theymos to not do anything about spammers, and now it shows that he does actually do something to prevent further spamming.
I think we just follow what has become this Bitcointalk rule. I myself feel difficult when I can not merit, but it did not break my spirits, in fact I am more excited again with this bitcointalk and I hope it will also happen for the members who have not got merit. And for the newcomers this is your peer challenge here also in our patience test. The important thing remains the spirit and Take the positive course