the mining process seems to be the same as other chains...
The mining process is actually quite simple. Especially for mining newbs like me. The lightwallet client allows mining in a pool with a click. And the lightwallet client is not the run-of-the-mill QT client. It has been made specifically for Merit.
...the invite distribution, the dev decided to keep 10% of them for new miners; that number seem to be manually set
10% is not for "new" miners but is rather to random addresses (could be PoW miners, could be not). And there is no manual setting or human bias in the distribution.