I'm starting this in a bad mood, because a rapid scroll through the initial long arsed post killed my main computer. Windows had a wobbly, and I'm going to have to pick it to pieces to see what happened.
So my first comment is - for god's sake stop posting books to start a thread. It will probably be quoted in various posts during the thread, and make the whole thing unreadable.

I think the posted suggestion would be bad for the forum. It might be good for self- aggrandisement, but the merit system levels are sufficient to serve their intended purpose, and that is to remove most of the posts that sig spammers make in order to leech minimal income from the forum.

Nullius is fortunate in that he has a number of junior(ish) members who have the same posting skills and obviously have empathy for him, and who are able to award him merits. His initial post was awarded a merit by such a member, despite the fact that the proposition would be a serious disadvantage for him. Most of us don't have this dedicated following.

Isn't it time that we accepted that the merit system seems to be working at a basic level, and we got on with the business of discussing crypto-currencies in a rapidly changing world economy.