If you are already of a high ranked position then most likely you like the recent stricter rules as you don't need to jump through the hoops yourself to claim merit and be able to rank up anymore, but when i look through the profiles of most of the higher ranked members i doubt more than a handful of them would be able to progress past the rank of Jr member themselves with the current framework were they not already ranked up.
Those higher ranked people who wouldnt have been able to rank up nowadays because they are hardly earning any merit, wont be getting into the best paying campaigns. And vice versa: when I joined my current campaign (which requires a certain amount of earned merit to join) I saw higher ranks than mine applying but not getting in.
In 90%+ of the cases, people want to rank up because they can make more money by writing. The rest dont care about signature campaigns but ranking up is a recognition of their good contribution to the forum.
So, in a way, merit has democratized the forum, but not in the sense of a social democracy, where all of us should be equal no matter if we make efforts or not, rather in the capitalist one where we are given the same opportunities and where we get to depend mostly on our effort.