The merit mechanic is great. It encourages users to post well to rank up. Maybe in the future signature campaigns can pay out using Merits instead of BTC

Thats something I think merit sources could be used well for.
But right now, why don't we make every 10 merits we recieve, translate to 8 or 10 sMerit? People with current ranks become the merit sources, and the merit can be passed around while the 8 merits recieved will stop merits being too common. Besides the example above, can someone help me try to justify the need for merit sources?