That is not the purpose the merit system was created for. It's supposed to be be used to reward good posts, and that is it.

You are suggesting merits as an additional bonus on top of the merits people already receive, is that it? Or are you thinking more of a system where merits are rewarded for certain services? The latter makes it look like merits are exchanged/sold for services, which shouldn't be done.

If merits are given as a bonus, where do those merits come from? Let's say we had a threshold where all members who earned 100 merits in a 30 days period get an additional 10 merits as bonus. But where do these 10 bonus merits come from? From the forum automatically? Theymos could probably automate something like that, but I don't think it will happen.

Maybe I still didn't understand the reward system you suggest, so please provide a precise example.