The fact that you were able to get merits for your posts means the system works.
Indeed, a lot of people active here that are SR, Hero or Legendary alreayd have enough merit to get to at least a member account and potentially further.
There's no need for experiment buddy, we don't have to make this things in place of those newbies who keeps on whining about the system, unless you're also one of them... just mind your own business and rank up for yourself.
Yes. I don't think Talk Merit got his scores just because he was Jet Cash (they might just merit Jet Cash instead as that's his main account anyway).
I was considering testing the ranking up part myself by making a new account - though I doubt it would actually do much other than taking merit from actual newbies here that are more deservant as they need it to rank up.
And you have already earnt quite a bit of merit yourself OP.