I’m pretty sure the original intention of the Merit System was for it to be more dynamic, with less dependency on Merit Sources for merit distribution in relation to the merits awarded by regular users.

Earning a few merits should not deem difficult. Earning a lot on the other hand is pretty demanding in terms of investing time, and obviously becomes more of a challenge the higher the rank due to the amount required to move on to the next rank.
Nevertheless, doing the maths, you need to consistently manage to earn 1 merit per day (a bit more really) in order to rank-up at the same pace as you would before de Merit System. That is, for merits to pace up at roughly the same rate as activity. OP is currently there, and probably will make it to Legendary without merits being much of an issue (at the expense of time of course). The OPs post has currently only been merited by (now) four people, and the balance for a single posts is pretty much above average.

Note: As to the negative feedback, you can try to PM whom ever gave it to you to see if they would reconsider in light of the changes that tool place a few months ago. The core focus should really be trade related, and I have seen some negative trust removed in light of this in other people’s cases . There is no guarantee though, and some will deem impossible even to revise, since the person who gave the negative trust is not necessarily around anymore.