Sorry that you see this from your perspective but its not so. If it was something like that then the admins would have changed the system, its running for more than a year now I myself reached the self-made senior rank, will soon become self-made Hero and Legendary. I am pretty optimistic about it.

Whether you get merits or not depends a lot on your luck and how much merit sources have at the moment. There have been members who ranked up from newbie to much higher ranks. Check out the meta section and you will find some inspirational threads.