You will be getting a merit as soon as you'll stop looking for it. Just start helping instead of complaining and it will come.
And just look at that, he was given a Merit on his second post without a sweat.
I explained my rationale for giving him a merit
here, and I stand by it. It was for that post which was a short but well-written post by a noob who I thought deserved it. You didn't quote the whole thing, by the way.
And hey, if I'm wrong then he probably won't ever make it past Jr. Member. No problem. I'm not going to make it a habit of meriting garbage newbie posts--it never was my habit anyway.