I get what you mean from the perspective of a forum user who needs Merit. My perspective, coming from a Merit source who always has a hard time "unloading" all sMerit, is that Merit is deserved by posts, not users. Good posts should be highlighted, even if the user was banned (even though there's a list of shame for Meriting banned users).
I usually don't send Merit "so that they can distribute it themselves". That's just a side-effect of Meriting a post.
There's another reason for my stance: sMerit isn't scarce. Theymos can create as much of it as he wants.