Word.  I don't know any of the altcoin bounty managers, but my gut feeling is that they shouldn't be trusted as merit sources--I base that on the fact that I've seen a lot of them who couldn't care less about the post quality of some of the members they select for their signature campaigns. 

I don't know how Theymos chose the 36 new merit sources, but hopefully those individuals are ones he trusts not to abuse the system by either selling merits or trading them with friends and/or alt accounts.