I agree with one merit to become Junior but we should also remove Junior's signatures. Requiring ten merit to become a Member and get a sig would really sort the wheat from the chaff here. Far too easy to beg, buy or trade one merit and this will become rife. Ten is a much different ball game and becomes exponentially more difficult the more accounts you have.
I agree that Juniors should also be prohibited from using signatures and personal texts. And I`m sure theymos also understands this. But I guess he didn`t want to establish such drastic changes all at once, as this could "scare off" users of lower ranks and have a bad effect on traffic. Theymos gives Juniors a chance to improve the quality of their posts. Establishing new rules for Newbies is a kind of warning for Juniors. If they correctly understand it, the need to establish more stringent rules in order to become a member, will disappear. And if spam from Juniors still continues, theymos will always have time to introduce new restrictions.