I have observed that some people merit ANN threads (I did it once, 1 merit). I think that it could be the natural thing to do to give a small award to the manager, unfortunately it has been abused over the first months of the merit systems, but I also believe it will be back to normal.
I don't think we should mix merit and marketing. ANN and bounty thread are payed job already, it doesn't deserve any merit to me. Or it's a way to reward (to pay) someone to do the job and it comes back to the merit trading problem.
But as you said, with every one running out of merit, it should be back to normal soon.
those on higher ranks with overflowing with merits should start to share their merit to those people being active here in bitcointalk forum. Its not fair because long time ago people gaining ranks without merit. And they are enjoying it nowadays and they dont care us(newbies ) are being active here in bitcointalk are begging merit everyday.We dont know when we can get merit. I am not an english speaker and not that good in making pharagraph topic here but atleast im contributing the community by participating some topics here.I hope more people can get merit as they are active here and following the rules.
The thing is: it's hard to tell someone how he should give his merit. It's up to every one, plus people tend to give them to their friends, ... But begging is not the way to go if you hope to get some. Guide and useful thread are often well rewarded, but you need to find something you are good at in order to write something useful to the community. You certainly won't be able to teach much about crypto to the legendary and old forum member, so you've got to find another way.