No one expected such a drastic change to occur when the merit system was introduced, but most will agree that this was necessary given the incredible amount of spam and huge alt account farms that abused everything they got their hands on. But every measure is subject to modification at any time, so if the admin estimates that the existing ranking system is too demanding for most, I don't see why some requirements wouldn't change, and that might include new ranks.

Still, I don’t think that would solve the problem of merit begging via PM or even in a public way. For some, this is something completely natural, just like plagiarism.