I just checked
my data, and indeed nobody ever Merited 5 posts within the same second.
However, Foxpup pulled it off with
6 posts
Wowza! You wouldn't think even Foxpup's nimble fingers would be able to pull that off, and I'm actually puzzled as to how he did it (potential time machine aside).
1. Bookmarking of quality posts to be merited when merit is lacking. Someone who had already noted or bookmarked posts to be merited does not necessarily need to re-read the posts before meriting it as said by OP.
I probably didn't mention that I occasionally do this for certain members when I'm out of merit, and even when I'm reviewing post histories I tend to hand out merits at a rapid pace if I'm familiar with that member's writing style and quality. At that point, the only judgement left to be made is effort, and that IMO can be done by looking at post length--which is a quick process when you have all of the member's posts pulled up on your screen.