your whole day consists of more than 24 hours a day.
Time travel!
I'm getting pretty close to 5000 merits, which will be pretty neat if/when I get there. My merit count isn't something I think about a lot, but I think I've gotten at least a wee bit excited every time the thousands digit went up by one. It'll have taken me around 4 years to earn 4000 merits (assuming I get to 5000 relatively soon). That math hasn't entered my brain until just now, and it kind of gives me a new appreciation of how hard it really is for someone to get to Legendary from Newbie if they started the path during the merit system era.
Believe it or not, but not every user is primarily here because of signature campaigns, although they're definitely a nice addition to participating in the forum, they're by no means the primary reason we're here.
Not all of us, but I really wonder how active bitcointalk would be if signature campaigns and bounties didn't exist anymore. I see a lot of other forums for specific altcoins--even the popular ones--as being dead compared to how alive this forum is. That tells me that being paid to post is a very significant reason why a lot of members are here. Ranks, and merit mean pretty much nothing, especially rank.
That's your opinion, and I'd argue the opposite. Actually, I'd argue that it's subjective and that the value of merits and the "worth" of rank vary from member to member. Some members get an ego boost from having a higher rank, while others couldn't care less. Also, if neither of those things meant anything, there would be no reason for them to exist--yet they do.