While I think that new rules are very useful for forum, and people with knowledge will still get thir rank up, it's undeniable that a lot of people were just lucky to register here before new system and earn their ranks without real contribution, I believe that's what he is referring to.
Partially true but there are people who are in the forum for years and done a lot for the forum. For them only, we are seeing the forum we have now. How about them? They deserved it. Every system starts from some points and feature like merit was needed to protect the forum. Instead of focusing on negativity OP should focus on the good stuffs happening on the forum since the merit has been introduced.
OP really needs to see there are people who started from 0 (like he has now) and achieved 100s of merits.
List of members achieved 0 to 100 and plus merits - hope this will give OP and others some encouragements.
PS: Truth is - people like OP will hardly change unless they change their mindset.