Obvious merit abuse (buy/sell and exchange/swap) will be punished by give the account negative trust or/and ban the account which makes the account worthless (read : can't join signature campaign) and the users wasting their limited sMerit and time.
With active users report, merit work as intended. Also, few members generously give merit to members who try to make constructive posts.
If you still don't like the system, go to another discussion forum such as reddit.
the fact is that the high ranks give themselves merits between them, and don't care about constructive posts.
as you can seeon this thread : LTU_btc Hero Member Merited by Jet Cash (1), marlboroza (1)
marlboroza Hero Member Merited by The Pharmacist (5)