I think part of the problem with reporting posts and getting them deleted is that it isn't really a punishment. A spammer can easily churn out a one line shitpost in under a minute. Even if 50% of their posts are getting deleted, they can still max out their bounty campaign easily enough.
One easy solution would be to remove any merits associated with a deleted post. I'm not sure what the "knock-on" effect of that would be though.
What would happen if the postder had awarded the sMerits associated with the deleted post?Another question is what would happen if the user deleted their own merited post to hide the merit abuse scenario
[1], but not the mods? so I don't think removing any merits associated with a deleted post would be a viable option by considering those two factors of your and mine even though we liked to see that removal of merits.
[1] - User can award merits for their alt and then delete their merited post from their alt.