Does anyone think giving out more sMerits per good post would help? If I'm not mistaken, merit sources get topped up pretty quickly so giving out 5-7 merits for a good post shouldn't put much of a ding in their supply.
I think a better idea would be to create more merit sources and thereby keep the system as decentralized as possible, but as theymos seems uninterested in adding new sources, this is maybe the best idea in the meantime.
5-7 in place of 1 seems excessive, however. Perhaps the sources who regularly have lots of merit left at the end of a month should just double how much they would have given.
Merit sources should try to send out all of their source sMerits. There is no reason to not do that, given the nearly unanimous concern about merit shortage and the onset of merit apathy. If that requires lowering some standards or increasing the number of merits per post... well, it's a tough first world problem but I have faith in you guys and gals.
Adding more merit sources is a different issue, and yes that needs to happen too. But it won't help if we keep hoarding those sMerits.