Oh well, lets give it time.
Of course there is an effect, but I'm sure it's temporary!
And in a week or two it will be necessary to make a rule - 2 merits for the jr. member.
As said from the announcement post, the rule was implemented "Due to excessive garbage-posting" which actually happened and can be proven so it doesn't make sense that they would revise the rule because of some speculations, what we need right now is real data to base the next move from, and in order to obtain it, you need to give it an adequate time and see how people adapt to it.
And can you elaborate your suggestion? From my understanding you want to limit how many merits can a user receive in an X amount of time, am I interpreting it correctly?
Obligatory receiving of 1 merit during a week of activity for all participants, regardless of rank.
For get the rank of junior member make it mandatory to receive 2 merits, and since this will have a short-term effect, then continue to add 1 merit