I don't usually go looking to merit people who have merited me because they're mostly users who already have enough merits and have a high ranking in this forum.
A user with the highest rank deserves the same amount of merits you would give a member who is ranked lower. His rank shouldn't be a deciding factor whether you will merit him or not. I have done the same thing many times before as well in the past. If given a choice to merit a user with a lower rank and one with a higher, I picked the one who is ranked lower. But I have changed that approach, and now I merit many Legendary accounts if I like their posts. And many times I do. The only factor I consider now is if the member I am going to merit participates in the merit distribution system or not.
What I look for when I have merits to give is users who are low ranking members and I personally have read posts of these users that I would wish to merit.
Nothing wrong with that unless you intentionally neglect and overlook the posts of higher ranked members.
That way I believe that I can help promote members who write good posts.
This statement can only be correct if you don't make distinctions between the users you wish to merit based on their rank.
Yes, the difference here is that you are a high ranking member so you have more merits to give. I am a lower-ranking member with fewer merits to give so I choose to give the few merits I receive to lower-ranking members. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had more so I could give to high-ranking members too.
I don't see how my choice to help users of lower ranks is bad. Maybe you can elaborate more on your point of view. Personally, I don't feel like a post loses value if someone doesn't merit it. However, it is the lower-ranking members who actually need those merits to rank up and gain distinction on the forum, not those who are higher. So, I operate based on that.