look at the case of n0nce for example.
They're a outlier, so it's not fair to compare them to the
average user.
Yeah, well, that's the most extreme example but there are many who are not nearly as good and yet receive merit. In my case, I received merits when my rank was lower, as I said before:
Mind you, when I was a lower ranked member I did receive many merits from higher ranked ones.
And I don't even come close to n0nce's shoe.
Maybe the admin should have created the merit system in such a way that it prevented Legendary from getting merits from the same rank, or the max amount of merits should have been set to 1000, although that would have opened some other issues in the distribution of merits.
Since theymos is an avowed ancap, I doubt that such an idea even crossed his mind.