i just think the merit will lead the forum to a decline, its very simple since new member is hard or impossible to get a rank rise, and there will no new people paricipating in the future, the forum member will be less and less, then new projects will not come here to post ANN, so its vicious circle
Not all of the members are here so they can rank up fast and earn more stakes or payments in the Signature campaign either Altcoin or Bitcoin, this is a forum about Bitcoin and other Digital currencies.
If there will be less members in the future, then I guess most of them will be the one that is here for the money and not the knowledge.