totally agree with this point - I nearly sent a merit to a bounty spammer earlier because he made a funny post.
So why didn't you merit it? Just because he is into bounties doesn't make a bad poster. I don't know who you're talking about, but if it were a funny post, then there was some thought behind it, and a merit for that won't make the world upside down or flat for that matter, unless the post was plagiarized or something, then it is a different story. Cause merit is to be given for high quality posts and not
post history. Not meriting people who participate bounty in bounties is like not giving citizenship rights to a black man or a muslim guy.
I would suggest that all the merit sources put a hold on giving merits in meta for a while, I know it will be hard as there is a ton of quality posts in here (mainly from Higher ranks).
I think we are overdoing it. Its really not required, and also remember, this is merit that you're talking about- something that is literally created out of thin air and has no physical existence.
I personally have no issues with bounty posters if that is only where they post. I have given a few of them merit. If they only post reports in bounty threads then they don't harm the quality of the forum. (It is easy to ignore those threads)
It is the signature spammers and thread bumping bots that I have issues with. The spam.
Plagiarists will get banned eventually anyway - with or without merit.