As I see it, the biggest advantage of the merit points system is that it allows you to talk about merit points, and to be rewarded with merit points. I've been awarded a few points, all except one were for comments about the merit system.
This has been my experience as well. The way I see it, people are still very frustrated with the merit system and whenever they see their opinions voiced by someone else, they feel like they want to reward that person by meriting them because that person was able to express what they themselves couldn't express for whatever reason.