It is a problem for the newbies getting merits, the eagerness is endless as they anticipate merit in any content they have put up effort with.
You are right, it's indeed a problem and very hard to obtain a Merit.
I have seen people sending a fraudulent Merit for low efort posts, like in local sections: German section
here or
here.
I contributes no value, still a Merit.
Merit should be reserved for well researched posts but still many well researched posts go unmerited and very many low quality posts go merited.
We need a Merit police to punish giving a Merit to low effort posts.
But it seem not coming. Is it that those who have excess of merits reserves their generosity or there are laid down principles in writing a Meritorious contents.
Let's discuss them
You need to focus your post on what is useful as a content, what people might be interested in.
About education, about Bitcoin, about exposing scams and about improving Bitcointalk.
Yes, Merit is very scarce and hard to obtain but it's not impossible to obtain a Merit.