Is there a way that I can sort the posts in each of the mentioned sections, based on the total amount of merits "spent" in the entire topic including the replies? That way I doubt I miss the important (read-worthy) stuff.
Check this out:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4422529.msg39438353#msg39438353It's a collection of the most popular threads here in the forum.
I don't know if there is such thing that you're looking for. You can ignore posts/boards to dexrease the number of posts/threads that you see. That way, you can only see those posts made from people here who actually makes good topics.