Does not sound like merit abuse to me. Sounds like reasonable discretion in which not everyone is going to necessarily agree about how to exercise such discretion. In other words, there is a range of reasonableness that is acceptable, and each of us will likely have different balances in what we consider to be reasonable.. I doubt very many folks would consider that withholding merits in those circumstances to be abusive - even though you have reached that conclusion.. which might even put your reasonableness in to question that you would label some kind of practice like that which seems to be reasonable discretion to be abusive.
For the merit system to work entirely, those who are part of it should help in distributing those merits, not just receive them and hoard them forever. That's how I see it. Everyone decides for themselves. Are you in or are you out? I have no problem with user X not meriting other people. We can still talk, joke, be serious, even trade with each other or run a business. None of that requires me to reward you with a unit that you don't care about.
If the majority of merit receivers only hoarded their merits, it would be a failed experiment, and the only way to receive merits would be from merit sources. Right now you can get merited from both merit sources and regular members who aren't and I would like to keep it that way by rewarding those who understand that. The merit economy works because people make it work. If everyone stopped caring then we can just forget about it.