The lists that you mention on Meta are basically data driven attempts at finding potentially suitable candidates to merit in an exceptional manner (exceptional as in not usual), not ensuring at all that the meriter will ultimately find the content of the posts of those listed meritable. The vast majority of posts that are merited are not data driven, but casually stumbled upon under the meriter’s (daily) browsing habits.  Daily browsing covers the chances of cero-merited profiles to be merited through their posts (as well as any other merit counter profile).

Being in a rush to be merited, whilst not caring much for it is rather a contradiction. I did not receive my first sMerit until nearly two months after joining the forum. Some people receive it earlier, some later, and some never. Bottom line is that there is no rush, and being it content driven, then that is what needs to be worked on (laterally you need to consider topic, style, depth, placement, etc.).

There are 3.935 Newbies that are still Newbies and that have at least 1 Merit (1.547 active from April 2019 onwards). That only goes to show that there are plenty of chances.