Well, really good for you, probably other users can learn from you. Though, in as much as I don't really care about the whole merit thing that much, its still a good thing to see that the system is working genuinely.

As for looking for topics with few replies; its most times tough to see good posts let alone good ones that have 'few' replies cause most of the posts you see are repeated posts that have been replied to many times. I think one has to be online 24/7 to catch up with good post and I'm personally not good at keeping up with it.