Before the application process was first come first serve, even that's gone. That used to give many people an edge even if they were not "good quality" posters.
This first come first serve was a crazy one. The moment the BM posted the topic we would see users were reserving posts and filling up the pages quickly. It was frustrating for participants of yahoo's campaign (this is what I experienced, not sure about you all), you wake up in the morning and see all the spots are taken before you to apply :-P
Since the merit system introduced we are seeing managers are now focusing to find quality posters and this indeed is helping the forum environment.
I think this is a service discussion post, because we are talking about a popular service (signature campaigns). A beginners version of this would be if this was a guide on how to get into signature campaigns.
Sorry I missed that. You are right.