I feel it is critical to maintain some resemblance of consequence in this forum. Otherwise, everyone would beg for merit.

I agree with this wholeheartedly and have said as much in thread like
this and
this. Where bitcointalk rules fall short, or they're not being enforced, DT members become useful for tagging. Merit abuse and begging has always been a gray area that I don't want to touch, but I'm delighted when other DT members don't have misgivings about neg-givings.