Isn't that the truth.

I tried to view OP's posts, and it looks like I have all those sections blocked.  No wonder he hasn't gotten any merits--my guess is that he's either posting entirely in bounty threads or in mega spam sections like Bitcoin/Altcoin Discussion or Economics. 

It always blows my mind how people overestimate their writing abilities and actually think their posts stand out from the rest of the shitposts getting plopped out upon bitcointalk daily. 

However, keep in mind that Theymos knighted some new merit sources today and increased the number of sMerits available to all of the sources.  That should help to alleviate some of this pressure on noobs.  But if you just got busted down to Newbie status and you have an activity of 280 or something like that, you're not doing something right and the problem isn't with the merit system or these new requirements.  It's with YOU.