...They don't understand that at some specific period, writing good posts is a habit, and writers even don't think of merits. Basically, when we effortlessly write (without distraction on whether we will get merits or not), we can write better posts. It's a key point. Merits will come when it's time, there is no reason to observe our threads, posts or profile pages to see whether we receive merits for our latest posts or not.
You nailed it!!!
A few years ago to start a thread on Bitcointalk was just mission impossible for me.
During the time I just mastered how to post, quote and now I have almost 60 threads started during the last 2 years.
It is so true that the last thing I thought about was the merits awards.
I was rather more concerned about my privacy and had to cut off a lot of text, to not disclose too much private info and even for a second haven't thought about merits.
Just promoted to Hero and am really happy with that.