The problem is that people will not be motivated to give smerits to good quality posts because they rather choose to keep them as commodity. Would you give your last merits, when you need badly to receive some in return?
This system would work better imo if when you gave merits, you received a bit back, lets say 0.5 or 0.1 out of 1 merit given away.
I don't think you understand the Merit system, merits are not a commodity. I have sMerit to give away, and there is no advantage to me to keep them. It doesn't affect my merit total either way. Giving merit in the expectation that you will receive merit in return is against the rules, and can earn you negative trust, or being added to my merit abusers gallery.
If you receive two merits, then you are deemed to be a worthy member of Bitcoin Talk, and you are given an sMerit, you can award this to a poster that you consider to be contributing to the Bitcoin Talk community. Please don't abuse this privilege,