Nice dude..
In my oppinion, I think Rank is number 2, Quality POST is more important. You will never get merit if you made a low quality Post. No Merit is Means No Rank Up (jr.member to member). I suggest, if you want to get merit you should made useful Post, meaningful Post, informative Post / News, constructive Post, educative like tutorial. Good Luck..
You are absolutely right, quality post means a lot, if everyone is committed to making a useful post on the forum, that would mean a pretty fair work for the mods and it would be easier for users to find good contents rather than populate the entire forum with craps