It doesn't matter if the person needs it. What's matter if the person deserves it.
I used to not care whether someone "needs" it or not. Until I read this:
I agree with this approach. I considered giving merit proportional to activity, but I decided not to because doing so would probably give far more undeserved merit than deserved merit in total. But undoubtedly some people got screwed by this, and if they have decent posts, by all means, give them the 250 or 500 merit that they need to rank-up.
Of course they still need to deserve it, but if I stumble upon a user who has decent posts and needs a certain amount of Merit to go up in rank, I'll give him the Merit needed.