Might be an unpopular opinion... But I think merit works pretty well.
The goal of merit is just to reduce account farming and spam. To find the real great participants of the forum and make them lvl up in ranks.
Once you're legendary, merit is useless. It's here just for the recognition, but an account with 1000 merit is the same as one with 1700 merit.
I got about 130 merit to spend and I try to spend it, but honestly people raging about merit system mostly don't deserve any kind of merit points.
Agree in part.
Some legendary or hero for the same reason don't deserve their rank, also for my point of view I can't find the difference on the "good post history" from earning 500 or 1000 merits, some users are spamming the meta 24/7 only to fish merits.