I'm glad I'm able to distribute as many merits as I do, and I wish more members would hit me up when I offer to do post history reviews, because I encourage that.
Can you open your topic with the distribution of merit? Something like
The Pharmacist Merit Giveaway. And there users will drop posts to your best links or something like that.
Giving more merits per post isn't a bad strategy at all, IMO. That's something I couldn't do before my sMerit allocation got upped, because I'd easily run out if I gave more than 3 merits for a decent post.
Yes, I see that many merit sources have adopted this strategy.