Some people might not consider there to be a lot of value in giving merit to higher ranking members but if their posts contribute quality and are on point, they do deserve it.  I am not going to lie, it has been difficult to rank up since merit came in place but it is something that we all have to deal with now.  I was a a few days away from becoming a member when merit was inserted into the picture, so it is taking longer but it is not worth crying over.  I think it should have been put in place for a while to see how it worked and then been added to the formula for ranking up.  Like a test run to see how it performed.  It is having an effect on the number of spam posts which is a great thing...now if we could just cut down on the people selling accounts or having multiple accounts to farm merit.