Ok, there is true in your words, but who will give merit for a post from newbie?
In my experiance, more often merit receive users with beautiful signature and avatars, than a person with only nickname and number of activity and merit number..
I will and have done so. Usually, they will have learned to trim quotes so people don't have to scroll through the whole of the post they just read again. Then after mastering the basics of using a forum they have posted something that I found interesting, didn't already know, answered a question better than I could or just simply made me laugh.
Really signatures and avatars don't make any difference other than sometimes I feel a bit guilty if someone is promoting a scammy ICO, but it doesn't stop me.