I've become radical. I've awarded a few posts with 2 merits recently.

On the rewarding of 'normal' posts - If I have time, and I see that a guy has made a sensible post ( what I would call a useful one), I have a look at his activity. If 50% or so of his first page on the recent post list are 'useful', then I will award merits for the block.
Yeah I do often give Merit for good & not great/high quality posts, mainly because there are lots of good posts but not that many great/high quality ones.
Oh me too, I reckon France 1-2 Argentina. Messi is about to explode into this World Cup after a slow start I think.
No Merit for Messi today.
Missed a sitter just before Aguero made it 4-3. That would have been 4-4 if Messi had scored a relatively easy chance.