Vod, it is a very good and short comment, but 45 merit I find a bit exaggerated. The only reason why so many Merit have happened is that the post is just at the beginning. Am I right there?
It's more that it was the beginning of the merit system, where people were playing around with it and perhaps didn't yet realize the importance of merits. There's no way in hell that even Vod would receive that many merits if he made that post today. In January, people were doing exactly what you saw on the first page of this thread--showering well-known senior members with merits.
Things settled down pretty quickly for whatever reason, and then the sMerits started drying up.
That font is annoying, BTW.