I like what you doing, but I am not 100% sure if you are doing this in the correct manner. We should not encourage people to post within a required post count. The interaction should come naturally, like you would be walking around at a party and joining discussions that spark your interest.
The main focus of the merit system, should be to improve the post quality, not the quantity. It also serve as a educational tool for people to see what quality posting looks like.
I would remove the minimum post requirement and just concentrate on highlighting the quality posts that adds value to the forum. ^smile^
Hey, I like your idea of thinking to remove the count that I've mentioned here, but I literally haven't asked anyone to spam (like you're saying - I'm also fully interested in quality over quantity). But as we know, newbies and those with lower ranks mostly try to gain higher ranks and they only post in spam megathreads, which is why I actually thought of giving them a chance this way - give their best in those 30 "better" posts but they should be able to know and pick 10 best out of those 30 confidently. I'll still look for all of the 30, and I've not asked them to make such number in a day or two, but during a period of 2 weeks. I've even decreased my required post count from 50 to 30 and I believe that they can discuss things and making such amount of posts during 2 weeks should not be a burden. I'm not trying to make them spam, but rather involve in discussions itself.

I have just one thing to tell you, and that's - WOW!
There are very few people here on the forum - some who have deep knowledge of things and others who do an in-depth study of things they get involved into. Your posts are an example for those who ask me what should they post in order to contribute. I seriously don't consider quantity but need quality assurance by members here for them to prove that they deserve even 5 merits from me. You're one of them, I've given 5 merits to you for your contributional intentions you've shown in each of your posts (except 2 which I didn't like personally). Enjoy your merits.
Thanks for your kind words, I really appreciate it.