Imagine 28 seconds between naturally browsing the board (not searching for your fav merit buddies at all just per chance your machine accidentally flys from you buddies post to his next one deserving more merit) reading the post (in full context of the thread)digesting it deciding on a sensible merit score and then just leaving that thread (cos it got boring after reading merit buddies post) and browsing the board naturally again (not searching for merit buddies)and finding another great post (just pure chance it is same buddy posting again) to read in the middle of a thread reading it and deciding on another senisble merit score. This just happening over and over.

Then they tell me --- if i happen to cross a good post I merit it simple as that. It's not like I just go searching for my merit buddies posts and taking 28 second or 30 seconds average to just plaster more merits to them.

edit  there is a 27 second one too... those 28 second ones are simply inefficient discovery/evaluation/rewarding incidents.