This has been discussed periodically in the past, and I generally agree with your views.
At the very least, I would like to easily be able to differentiate between airdropped and earned merits. Changing the text under everyone's avatar to something like "Merit: xxx/yyy" or "Merit: yyy (xxx)" where yyy is total merit and xxx is earned merit would be a good first step.
In terms of decaying merit, I think the idea has some merit (heh), but I'm also not sure I'm comfortable with stripping older members of their ranks. It seems a bit too much like
ex post facto to me, punishing them for not earning enough merit in the past when merit didn't even exist. I think some sort of compromise would be best - decay airdropped merit over time, allow users to keep their ranks, but also introduce some new requirement to keep their signature privileges, such as earning at least 10% of the merit usually required to reach that rank.
- remove a percentage of the airdropped merits if the respective member doesn't earn 1 merit in a certain period of time; increase the percentage in the next period
- decay entirely the airdropped merits for those who didn't earn even 1 merit (with some exceptions though; for example, satoshi, donators, VIPs could be such exceptions).
If we are going to decay airdropped merit, it should decay for everyone in a uniform fashion. Decaying at different rates for different people will just add more confusion to the system, not less.
To everyone: Please don't engage TOAA and derail yet another thread. Everyone in the world is acutely aware of his opinions on the merit system at this point. It does not need discussed further.