Well, I would agree with you if our forum was not intended to discuss bitcoin and related topics. But when you look into the history of messages of such a newbie, then for a moment you forget what kind of forum you are on, since almost all of his messages about merit, statistics and social injustice to newcomers
Most of the forum is intended for bitcoin discussion, but there
are sections dedicated to other things (like Meta). There are plenty of newbies posting in Bitcoin Discussion, but their posts are generally written for the sake of whatever campaign or bounty they're in--and that's been discussed to death, so I'll end my statement there. I do agree that the ambitious newcomers who want to climb the ranks tend to post about merits and other non-bitcoin related stuff a lot, but usually I know the difference between an attempt to get merits and a genuinely good post.
I dont give high merits to legends as they most likely dont need them.
I don't blame you, and I kind of have the same mindset--though lately I've been meriting a lot of Hero/Legendary members, since their posts are the ones that have stuck out from the rest of the dreck I've been reading. I do try to follow that "ranking up pipeline" thread, because I like helping out members who are close to their next rank--and it's a great way for me to hand out a lot of merits in a short period of time, since I'm basically doing post history reviews.