1. The process of sending merit seems a bit annoying. You've to go through another web-page and select number of merit to be sent and then send it. IMO, it'd be better if it could be sent just by clicking "+Merit" button right within the thread.
2. It'd be much better if you guys allow only one merit by the merit-sender per post. This will reduce fake-merit-exchange or fake-merit-giving. There're people sending tens of their merits to a single post which clearly seems like something fishy.
I agree with #1, we need an easier way to send merit. Preferably on the same page and without any third party scripts.
I think that #2 is not really good since a post may deserve more merits than the other and the abusers would still be able to go around it by sending it to multiple posts.
The current system seems to work for me, and it avoids making merit awards accidentally,
I agree that the max award should be reduced. I suggested a max of 2 per post per member.
A max of two merits per post would still be a bit drastic.
I would propose using 5 as a max. I remember a lot of websites used to have the "5 star" rating of something in place at some point (and I think many still have it). So, this way you could send 1 merit if the post is decent and 5 merits if the posts is excellent.