Do you want to make this place empty if not already? New users would not register here anymore. Users would be left here would be the enforcers and the shit posters.
New users are not here on the forum the rank at the start, so this makes no sense at all.
99% of new users are bots or alts so killing them is a great idea, but OP idea is not so good in my opinion since is already hard to achieve full member +rank. There is no point to increase again the difficulty to earn one rank.
The only thing that I agree with op is to increase the merit required for Jr but 10 seems too much, 5 is a great number.
I would also hope for a lowering of the merits required for hero and legendary ranks, they require really a lot of merits to gain especially for those who do not speak English as a first language. (considering also how many active hero or legendary have not earned even 50 merits from the start of the system)
What the difference in earning 500 merits (for hero rank) and a hypothetical 400? Does the 400 merits earn guy deserves nothing? Just my thoughts.