Well since most of the people either don't have merit or simply never think about it (I completely forget about the whole merit thing even when I come across a good post) and then you get dedicated people as merit sources and threads that ask for good posts to merit them, doesn't really sound like a master plan. Easy and reliable? Sure, but it's not intuitive tbf.
This used to happen to me but after over 2 years if this is the same heppens to users then I would say they are not regular on the forum. I have not checked your history and stuffs but for a reguler forum user it's a habit. Merit is there in your mind always, you can ignore it in public or can do whatever you want to do but it's in your mind.
If this was not in your mind then why would you wirte a long post about it? My wild guess is that somehow you are not feeling okay to become comfortable with the culture hence the alternatives in yoru mind. Maybe merit is not a perfect system but it's working just fine to guard the spammers.
"So i was going through that "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread and it actually made me think about this whole merit thing." Mostly because of that thread and this post kind of snowballed into what it is.