Yeah, suchmoon is the man/woman/whatever when it comes to merit generosity (for this month at least), and it's nice to see reports like this.  I don't think of it as a competition, but the higher I am on a monthly list of most generous merit-givers, the happier I am.  Why?  Because it means I'm probably doing a decent job as a merit source, a position I take pretty seriously as I'm a strong supporter of the merit system. 

I assume fillippone is a merit source, so there's no reason for him to ever hoard merits.  Don't know if it's the same with all the merit sources, but my sMerits get replenished very quickly--way faster than it was when I first got tapped to be a source.