The better way is 100-150 earned merits plus 1500 + activity. Hence getting the best of both worlds and also you give a guarantee of a longer history here to review before making a decision.
I totally agree with you, what a drawback to the current system are:
- The increase of trusted members greatly makes reliance on one feedback incorrect.
- The limitations of the old members, many of the trusted members "DT1 & DT2 " currently did not spend 500
days activity in this forum, which makes their knowledge and evaluation less depth of the old members.
In fact if you do not have any background on cryptos, the 500 days is not enough to trust your assessment.