my opinion:
1. merit system is good to stop some scammer.
2. but it is also a bad thing for those who are not scammer and not getting rank up for this hard system.
You have 6-month-old registration, TILL now you have posted only 27 posts. It means you are not serious member od this forum and You are blaming the merit system.
Who post the quality post, he will get the merit definitely.
sometimes you are writing some good thing or good topic but you are not getting merit because a good viewer did not see your post or thread.
You got the reply for you post within half an hour with 6 members out of which 2 are hero members 1 sr.memebr. If your post had some good content, they definitely gave you merit.