I would really like the ability to issue demerits. I want to give out a minus one to low quality efforts that beg for merit.
More aggressive approach to spammers but surely that would also come with some "problems", possibly. One of them would be how much can you demerit someone, would it just be the polar opposite of meriting or not? Also, someone with just 3 alt-accounts could possibly bombard one user and quite possibly lower them for a rank or two, depending on the circumstances.
But surely, posts like this one:
I really want to get Merit, but Merit is too hard to get.
should receive demerit, but if you ask me, one "demerit" button that would automatically deduct merit count by 1 would be just enough.