That makes no sense whatsoever.  I'd also point out that most of the merit abuse occurs between alt accounts, and it's usually low-ranked members and not the good 'ol boys' club like you claim.  I've seen plenty of older members meriting lower-ranked ones, myself included.  Yes indeed I've merited Legendaries, but I happen to like their posts better in general and I have certainly tried to give merits to newer members.  That claim that merit passes between old-timer friends just doesn't pass the smell test.

As far as the OP goes, I'm not quite sure what he's suggesting--seems like a minimum time frame between ranks?  Whatever it is, it's probably not going to happen.  When Theymos implemented the merit system, I suspect he did so with the intention not to make any major changes to it for quite some time.  As I've stated before, we're all lucky he created it in the first place.  It took a lot happening on the forum to get him to do it.