2 - Many of those who you cited seem to make fairly good posts, but they all seem to have fairly low amounts of merit. This could be an indication that some of the local threads that are not large enough for detected subs are lacking source merit.
Yeah true. We have very few people who share merit in our local, the reason is they don't have merit to share. For example, I have zero merits at the moment.
Having sufficient source merit in local communities should be important. Without sufficient source merit, members will not rank up, which may lead people to not be as engaged, and not as active in their bitcointalk communities.
It is not a big deal if some people receive a little bit of merit they should not receive, but it is a problem if people are not receiving the merit they deserve. If people receive merit erroneously, others will see their poor quality posts and will still be subject to bans if they violate the rules, but OTOH, if someone does not receive merit, they may become frustrated about not ranking up and not be as active as they may otherwise be.
Exactly the truth has been spoken and those are the reflection of my thoughts also. By the way, the scenario that you explained was made me frustrated almost two years ago. There were some reasons though. It was also one of them. But recently, I have got some merits which I deserved I believe. It's very inspiring for me to do better for the next or coming near future. To grow the community, the local thread can help a lot of community-based people in a different area and it will also be helpful for the newcomers too to know well.