Personally, I like to help new members to rank up but not unconditionaly.
They have to offer something in return, quality post which I can reward with merits, but it's my opinion of course.
Nothing wrong with that standard at all--I have pretty much the exact same position about giving out merits, and there really shouldn't be any other reason to do so since that's what the system was made for.
OP, welcome back and I say go for it. You could also request that members PM you with links to posts they think are merit-worthy. I've done that before and surprisingly my inbox wasn't flooded at all. It's tough to sift through all the one-line nonsense posts in search of the gems, so giveaway threads or anything similar is a good way to go IMO.
Interestingly enough, there haven't been many threads about merit in Meta in quite some time. I have the B&H section on ignore--is that where they've all gone, or have newbies kind of given up on the idea of ranking up?
Recently I sew several merit giveaway threads in the B&H section of the forum but, as I mentioned before, it's really difficult to find many good and quality posts there, posts which deserve merits.
I personally think that good members will get their merits any way and that they dont need help with merits or merits giveaway topics.