Congrats, OP.  You registered here shortly after the merit system was rolled out, which was probably the worst possible time if your goal was to rank up, so big props to you for making it all the way to Legendary.  Took quite a while, though, didn't it?  Lol.

At least you didn't have to wait until the last possible activity period to reach the final rank (I made Legendary on the second-to-last activity period, 1020 or whatever it was).  Either way, you did it and those lower-ranked members trying to figure out what the secret to ranking up is should browse through your post history and see how it's done.

Yeah, but you might get lucky.  You've got the requisite number of merits and activity, so now it's just up to whatever algorithm Theymos uses as a "lottery".  Good luck, hope you don't have to wait too much longer.