You should probably leave it to theymos to explain what his current view of the trust system is
Although related to merit abuse, this is his most recent comment about trust:
If a DT member tags you for something stupid involving merit (ie. probably anything less than selling merit), then they're not going to be a DT member for much longer.
This was said to a merit source, which may or may not matter.
I really dislike this blunt statement as it's now going to be dragged around by Quicksy et al claiming that e.g. sending merits between alts is ok because theymos didn't explicitly name it.