It's not necessary to always have a good quality . People will even send you merits of they find humour in your posts .
Another way is to post something innovative which people would like. Like there are many topics started by people which showcases ideas on how to reduce spam or topics related to that , which have been merited by many users.
Completely agree with you. Especially for Jr members who need 10 merits to rank up, there are a lot of options. Here is what they can do to earn these:
1) Post genuine replies tp queries being asked in this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0. You should be the first to answer the query and answer the query in detail. I think I got about 5-8 merit points answering different queries there. I have also seen replies of other members getting rewarded there frequently.
2) There is a thread offering merit points for creating Infographic, Even if you cannot write good posts, you can make a Infographic and get some merits.