On the other hand, there are merit-worthy posts that went unnoticed so I guess that makes the world go round.
I cannot agree with you more. I always stalk other peoples previous post to see and study what are their posting behaviour and what specific board they are posting so that I can learn learn based on what they share in the community.
Based on my observation, those informational (or statistically backed) posts are what people like to see, hence meritable. Along with artworks or some user-generated contents.
Other than that, generally helpful or posts concerning some welfare do receive merits, albeit on a lesser scale.