Do you think he would use the same arguments for any random other member? No way; he would tag that member immediately negative.
I was talking about the behavior in January. I never tagged anyone for giving huge merit awards in January. I rarely tag anyone for merit abuse, only the worst and most obvious cases of it. Check the feedback I left and tell me when the first time I left a neg for merit abuse was. Early on it was a weird new system and we were all getting used to it.
Either way I realize there's no way I'm going to convince you of anything, nor is there a point to arguing with you. You can believe what you want.