Don't judge someone's knowledge of bitcoin and bitcointalk from their ranks because there are lot of exceptions to explain the ranks is not actually determine everything, just go to the technical board where you see low ranked members who have more knowledge about how bitcoin things works than some random legendary posting in bounties or altcoin board.
There is something quite unique about those newbie accounts, you will notice that those accounts who once in a while post in bitcoin technical support and development and technical discussions get merited by legendary because they know how valuable their contributions are in all those area and even with the merits earned, they don't increase their activity to increase their ranks, they are always fine with giving accurate replies to technical questions and mistakes users do post, they don't even value signature space and they are cool with. There are even users who go to the length of ignoring posts of signature participants.