so last from the list of 57 users gave 323 merits if the system works 269 days (data stored from 2018.01.24 - 2018.10.19) it makes only 1,2 merit be day from this source while the first from the list gave away 6.266 merits what makes 23,29 merits per day. It's a huuuge difference - I'm wonder why?
I understand that probably the lower limit has not been set but 1 merit a day per merit source is rather poor result (I'm also sure that some of first 57 users aren't merit source at all - they gave away their "own" merits what makes this situation even worse)....
Merit sources have different allocations - rumor has it those can range between 50-1000 sMerits per month. That's not much more than 1 per day at the lower end.
Also top 57 is not all original merit sources. As you noticed, some in the top 57 might not be sources at all, but also those who are sources might not be the original ones so they have been sending merits for less than 269 days.
Having said that, it's true that we routinely send less than we should as evident from the monthly stats:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources - 23045 source merits available (per month), i.e. potentially 40k+ after halving, give or take rounding.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsend - 19056 merits sent in the last 30 days.
That's not even half of what's available each month, not to mention remaining airdrop sMerits.
That gives us as maximum potential initial airdropped sMerits per rank of:
Member: 10 * 0,1= 1 sMerit
Full Member: 100 * 0,2= 20 sMerits
Sr. Member: 250 * 0,25= 62 sMerits (floored)
Hero Member: 500 * 0,35= 175 sMerits
Legendary : 1000 * 0,4= 400 sMerits
That was the potential maximum, but the real value for each case, as per the above formula, varied depending on their activity over the prior year.
There was something wonky with that formula. I think theymos actually halved those sMerits. I had max activity and I got 200 and I don't know of anyone else who got more than that.