Bitcointalk isn't some sort of perverse RPG, where you need a strategy guide to tell you how to slay the dragon at the end of the water level.  It's not a big mystery, and even the 3 activity noobs seem to be mouthing the words "We need to make a quality posts and we can gain merits".  Aside from the problem of whether said noobs are ever going to rank up, that's essentially the correct answer.  And I would add that you have to get on the radar of people here who have merits to give and will hand them out to low-ranked members.  Because of how awfully unreadable bitcointalk has become and the fact that it's mainly noob shitposters who are responsible, there's a lot of bias against members of the lower ranks.  

A lot of that is well-deserved, but two things:  

1)  The merit system isn't even 3 months old yet.  A lot of members who are squealing about how unfair the system is are just being lazy and impatient.  This is akin to being the lazy-ass coworker who steals company pens that everyone wants fired, and who asks for a raise every 3 months.  It's just not a realistic perspective.  And,

2)  You can't expect to earn merit by making posts in threads that no one reads.  This point was recently made by DarkStar_ in another thread, and it's right on the money.  I've noticed that the vast majority of shitposts are made in mega spam threads in certain sections of bitcointalk, where most of the threads have titles that are these idiotic questions like "How bitcoin affect your life?" or "How can I earn btc?" or "The advantages of bitcoin".  These are topics that have been discussed hundreds of times already, and new threads are usually created by Account_A so that Alt Accounts_B-Z have something easy to write about.  And guess what?  No one reads that shit, especially not other spammers, who don't care about reading anything anyway.

Again, there's no mystery.  Take enough time to write a post like I just wrote, with some thought put into it, and you'll eventually get enough merits to rank up.  If not, goodbye and good riddance.