What changes I see today, after the introduction of the "Merit" system?
1. The reverse effect. The merit-system was made in order to save the forum from the influx of useless posts, topics, etc. Today, "thanks to" the introduction of this system, we have the following: the creation of the same topics about new merit system, about shit-posts and the emergence of begging.
4. Monetization. For the time being, it is not clear until the end, the system struggling with the sale of merits or not? Like other forum participants who watch this process and paint trust if they saw merits on shit-posts, so I cant say with full confidence about the sale of merits, this process will be more clearly visible after the passage of time.
1) You are very much right about this and I think this problem will exist in future or may become more severe. Members here have seen some of the initial threads regarding merit system getting number of merits. Now in future if we have any other change in forum rules, members will create threads about that rule change in hope of merits again.
2) I do no think that sale of merit points is a big concern here. It might be happening on some scale but will not continue too long as the default merit points given to members are limited.