I don't believe that buying high ranking accounts is good. It tends to bypass the selection process, and it is a bit confusing for members. However, lets say a senior exec from a £10billon exchange wants to join - should he have to start as a newbie, when he clearly isn't a Bitcoin newbie? I would suggest a new rank of "sponsor", and it would be up to Theymos to decide if an applicant is suitable. Posting and advertising rights could be based on either payment, or the status of the sponsor's organisation.
Before registering here, I was actively using this forum for educational purposes but started with newbie's rank. I think that's normal and we shouldn't test someone's knowledge and give them rank according to that but I agree with you at some point. I think we should have a badge like sponsor or verified user, most likely this will be used on company's representatives here, those who make official ANN threads. Verification may be done the way fb pages, twitter accounts are verified on famous persons.
In overall, current merit system needs some significant changes and improvement, we shouldn't stuck on old, first model because time already show us what's happening around it. For example, merits mustn't be given on local boards cause people here think like: Hey, this guy is from my nation, let's unite and help each other.
Merit has turned into business, some guys have tons of merits on local boards where foreigner has no idea what they talk but they don't have any merits on traditional/global boards. Some people even just directly ask for merits to strangers... I think such people should be excluded from merit system, which, as a result cause stuck of their rank.