I always find this argument really funny. This is the one reason why so many newbies argue that it is really hard to earn a merit. They will post a decent and high-quality post and you will point out that they do not deserve it because of their other posts. Then what will happen? that newbie will be discouraged because he cannot remove/delete his past posts and cannot turn to a new leaf and will be forever be judged because of his past post and will never earn (or be lessened the chance to earn) a single merit in the future.
There are 120 merit sources and thousands of other users who can merit this newbie, as evidenced by bones261. Everyone has their own criteria and that's what makes the system work. Otherwise theymos could just grant merits based on how many times you said "sir" and "please".
So how about you find those unmerited "high-quality" newbie posts instead of whining about meaningless hypotheticals. I'm quite certain these unicorn posts
don't exist.