Perhaps instead of these requirements, the demerit function could be restricted to moderators of the board, ----- Newbies would start complaining about bias or "keeping them down" if legendaries were allowed to do this.
Then drama queens would start complaining about censorship, dictatorship and biased moderation on the forum (more than they already do). We don't need that, we don't want that.
Altough the idea is not bad in principle, restricting it to a certain rank, or group of people wouldn't be wise. The idea of X smerit= Y -smerit is the most sensible I've heard so far in this matter; and maybe another round of sweeping the airdropped merits of profiles that have not earnt a single merit in 2 years, and are active posters (not to discriminate the old stablished members that left the forum and may come back one day) could be considered