This could be true.

But possibly there are some other solutions before going radical.

I see that one of the problems is that people do not give their merits away because for some reason they think that they will gain something in some point of time from their Smerits, i believe that we need  something that motivates poeple to give their Smerits than just keeping them.

Also i think that the amount of Smerits out there is way too small in respect to gaps between members.

Aand one simple thing that could help the forum, 2FA. It would help to reduce  Jr.member farming because i believe it wont be rational for them to have ton of mobile devices to keep registering new acc s.