I believe that the merit system not only creates equal conditions for writing highly qualified posts, but also radically changes the established hierarchy on the forum. Now its not enough to be a high rank user to enjoy the respect of other participants. Personally, I look at the number of merit first of all. And I think many others also evaluate this indicator. Now the rank itself doesn`t mean anything: if it`s not confirmed by merits, then trust in such a user immediately falls and his account begins to cause suspicion. We see a huge number of hero and legendary members who aren`t able to earn at least 1 merit, but on the other hand we see users of lower ranks who have proven that they really benefit the bitcointalk forum. A new elite is being formed at the forum, the foundation of which is not activity and rank, but merit-recognition from other members of the bitcointalk community.
Yes the merit system is more in the hands of the users who read your posts and appreciate it with some merits if they find your posts valuable in any way. There is a huge difference in the old system as compare to the merit based system because in the old system it was harder for some new but established users who have had enough knowledge and understanding about Bitcoin and other cryptos than some higher ranked users, but unfortunately they were limited because of their activity levels. Now those few talented users have the same opportunity to participate in the forum by sharing their valuable knowledge and opinions to the users by posting. As the higher ranked hard-working, knowledgeable, and honest, users who have contributed many valuable things to this forum as their duty, appreciate their work by giving them merits so that the newly talented users can proudly share their knowledge and opinions without any hesitation.
hello can i beg for only 1 merit ? ive been looking for 1 and i have 40 plus activity 
As answered by many well-reputed and trusted users of the forum, it is highly non-ethical to ask for merits just to gain higher ranks. Begging for ranks could cause many problems to your account and to your reputation, as everyone will always blame you as a merit beggar. The best thing you can do to gain some merits is by doing some high quality posts that have been well researched by you, so that every user of this forum will love to give you some merits. But still I recommend you to not post highly quality posts just because of intention of gaining some merits as that will still become a hurdle for you because that thing will be without passion. You should also keep in your mind that the good quality posts should not be copy/pasted from other users, websites, forums, as yours because such kind of posts will fall in the category of plagiarism which is highly unacceptable that could be the cause of your account getting permanently banned from this forum forever. Do your work as a forum user sincerely and you will surely gain some merits for yourself as a reward for your work.