Really dont understand why are complaining about merit system. Those who want to rank up, still manage to do it. Just take a look on this topic
[LOG] The ranked up members - Congratulations!.
This proved that merit is distributed, and not kept to prevent others from ranking up.
People with a lot of Merit can earn $50 in BTC a week easily and more in signature campaigns. They have absolutely ZERO motivation to give others Merit because if anything giving others Merit will give them more competition in the signature campaigns.
But if everyone distributed all their merit to others and merit sources wont have merit limitations, this would created forum rank worthless. Everyone will be a Legendary and everyone would earn 1$ weekly for wearing signatures. Even accounts, that has only bounty reports in their post history will get Legendary status in two years. Is this what you want?
P.S. Ever thought why in Olympics only first place is awarded with gold medal and everyone else not?