I think any account which hasn't earned any merit in the last 12 months should lost a possibility to wear a signature. Perhaps it would contribute to a more quality posting on the forum.
That includes punishing inactive accounts, such as
this one.
Any good campaign manager would still check the post quality, including the Merited posts. If the post isn't worth it, it shouldn't be counted as merited to qualify for the campaign.
How can a campaign manager judge that a comment worth a Merit or isn't if it is a subjective assessment system?
Easy: a campaign manager can do whatever he wants.
You have received suspiciously large amounts of Merit for posts that aren't worth it. I don't count that as "earned" Merit. Ending up on exactly enough Merit to become a Full Member an hour before applying doesn't help your case. Rejected.