Very long post, can't quote one by one since I am on mobile phone. First thing is this forum isn't anything related to financial investments or something similar that investors will check Alexa rank before invest. This forum has created for discussion regarding bitcoin and related stuff. So either merits system is exist or removed you will able to make discussion. No one will prevent you from it. So why you are worried about merits?

Whoever left this forum for merit system they were just a spammer. They never contributed themselves for forum. So who care even they left or stay? If you are a good contributor and good poster on this forum you don't need to worry about merits.