Change this mindsets of yours and you'll definitely see a different result considering if you up your game in regards to contributing positively to discussion. Fighting the system won't help matters (it has never helped anyone). you just have to embrace the change and search for ways to benefit from it which the obvious is been productive on the forum.


Don't have the stats to back this up but from my observation, most of the old members you speak off aren't interested in the merit system per say (excluding the merit sources) so you just have to find better excuses for your lack of recieving merits and not this.