The Merit system is broken, very few people actually send merit to valuable posts, the vast majority of it gets circulated between old timers who know eachother personally on
the forum, and it doesn't help that most of these guys are on the Bitcoin related forums;
so while altcoin proponents now probably outnumber the Bitcoin maximalists, the merit distribution is disproportionately in favor of Bitcoin sympathizers...
You're absolutely right and when people try to point this out, older and higher ranked members will always try to suppress it with the notion that they also merit posts that are worth meriting. The merit system is human driven and humans by nature don't give freely they only give to their close pals or people they find doing their bidding. I think the system should be revisited and reviewed. It's not about stopping shit posting. I have always been of the opinion that merit should be done by the forum itself not individuals in the forum.