There's no problem giving out merits if the person receiving it really deserves it. I know that it's hard to rank up these days.
It's really hard, especially English isn't our native language.
My only point is, why we need to give sMerits to legendaries like Theymos? they already on top, merits and sMerits are for high quality posts and they're not intended to the posts you're agreeing with.
There are some higher ranks are only after on busting offenses and they earn sMerit. What's the point? Busting members who did offenses are not considered as high quality posts.
If that's the case I would rather hunting down some members who are abusing their sMerits and other offenses to earn merits.