OP, sorry, nothing personal, but I think this thread wasn't really needed. You put effort into your post and collected correct information, but the problem that there was so many similar topics and you just repeated points which already been covered so many times. I think that there are more than enough information for newbies about Merit.
Accept it or not, 99% of the users are in because of merit. So why not tackle the issue head on. It is like everyone wants one but doesn't want to talk about it.
I think you exaggerate Merit too much. Not everyone here need Merit, same like not everyone came to Bitcointalk to earn money.
Maybe this person didn't know that someone has already opened a topic/thread about how to get merits, but for some reason it is actually good seeing this person trying to help other users and shared the idea of earning merits.