The system is quite young for the forum, 3 months is not enough to people have learned not to forget to put merit. The brain needs to get used to not forgetting to do something. Although research shows that it is enough of the week "to conduct experiments - people wore glasses that turned the world upside down. Three days people were confused, and like a fool waving hands in front of him. For about the fifth or fourth day, the subjects are already well-oriented. The brain was rebuilt under the new conditions of the image. " and we probably need more time to get used to the system of merits required months not a couple of days , time will pass and everything will be normal.
What about the Bad:
I agree with you on this issue we must look for the solution.
One option is to remove the rank (and number of merit) from the visible fields in the message. So would the message have not been assessed from the owner rank.(I understand that you can determine the rank of the avatar and the signature but it will not be so noticeable as newbie jr.member member sr.member hero and legendary)
Rank and merit can only be seen in the profile
This technical change is simple and easy to check for a week how to change the  system merit
To prohibit the distribution of merit in some of the topics Marketplace (Altcoins), Politics & Society