Punishing members giving merits to low quality posts
This is already happening.A lot of members who sent merits in bulk like 20 merits or above for a single post were easily recognized, reported by members here and then given negative trust by senior members. Unfortunately, members are still not stopping this practice as evident from such cases being reported frequently even after the merit system is quite old now.
What you say is not relevant to the bolded statement above. You are talking about merit farming between altaccounts or simply merit trading. If proven beyond resonable doubt they do get tagged.
Rewarding members giving merit to high quality posts
What type of rewards are you expecting ? Monetary rewards or merits ?
What type are
YOU expecting may we know? People dont make posts here to simply make money. They do it to help other people with their problems associated with crypto and to discuss problems, solutions and other related stuff. How the hell did you even think of "Monetary" rewards? The answer is obviously merit.
This suggestion is not practical in my opinion as most of the merits are being given by merit sources who are already established members.
The merit sources have better judgement about who is a shitposter and who is not. Which post deserves merit and which one does not. So the suggestion is practical even if you dont like it.