The tech-boards have always been lacking Merit compared to - say - posts in Meta. Since I'm still loaded in sMerit, I've sent you my 30 days maximum.
Merit sources really shouldn't be biased against (or for) certain members, though I can't say I haven't been guilty of that before.
As a Merit source I can be biased against reading posts from certian users, and once a user is on my ignore list, he's much less likely to receive Merit.