Who said that? Merits should serve only one purpose: - Show that the member is a good quality poster/ does good stuff for the forum. A newbie with 100 merits and 2 posts is unlikely to be taken seriously by anyone. People should stop treating merit system like the trust system.
I just made an assumption based on the facts that I know about Richard Heart and also I tried to think with his head. Also, don't forget to check out what just popped up amongst his posts:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5091520.msg48985005#msg48985005