Nice analysis here.  I figured I'd sent merit to a lot of members who'd merited me in the past, but it's nice to see a number.  The fact is that there are a handful of members whose posts I tend to like, but that's the reason I send merit to them--not because they're my buddies.  I don't know anyone here personally and rarely chat with anyone by PM or any other means, and I don't even consider a user's rank when I'm sending merit.

People complain about this because they're posting in shitty spam megathreads; they're posting garbage; they're impatient; and they're immature and tend to blame everyone else for their failings.  It's so much easier to criticize the system when it's not working in your favor, but on bitcointalk most of what people are posting not only is garbage, but in most cases probably doesn't even get read.  Check out Bitcoin/Altcoin Discussion and you'll see what I mean. 

How anyone thinks the average member (not to mention merit sources) is going to give them merit for posts that are only made to satisfy sig campaign quotas is beyond me.  So many people here are fully delusional.