Over inflation of merit source and merit source allocation can create a new generation of pseudo-quality members who will turn to likely spammers after ranking up.
It still requires to somewhat prove you're a quality writer, with or without merit inflation. You can't just reach 100, 250 or 500 merits, whether we have 111 or a thousand merit sources. That's why most bounty hunters remain with less than 100.
The recent merit inflation did more good with the entrance of new, merit-worthy users than bad for these few merit whores.