You are right. I was too narrow in the way I said it because it does happen on occasion but I still believe it is not the norm.
I also need to work on not saying "you" so much in my posts or addressing a certain other poster like that because I certainly don't mean/want to put a specific person on the spot like that, usually..

I should have said something more like - "How many merited posts do you all see merited for quality of writing and effort despite the sender profoundly disagreeing with the message of the post they merited?"

I think it is natural for us to use merit as a "+1", or a "Yeah, what he said." to show our support for a well placed message that we want to back up as an endorsement.
Or even something funny but low effort, just whatever we enjoy.

It's very true and natural for us to do and I don't think it is wrong to do so, but I can see why someone from another perspective who thinks it's not so funny would feel butthurt seeing a low effort post get merited.

Hey, that's pretty good but look at this one..
My stats there are abysmal! (If the ratio means something bad like some perspectives seem to think.)

I might some day..