In bitcointalk forum there are really good posts even that does not earn atleast single point of merits.and there are many spam and off topic posts that earn bunch of merits.
And even some forum users does not give merits for quality posts and they share merits with only there friends for some shit posts
Some forum users who tried to make quality posts are now demotivate with this situation
Give it some time. I am waiting for the time when all the account farmers have used their default sMerits. We will see major impact thereafter.