Merit Sources shouldn't need to do merit hoarding, because when they make a Vision and Mission when applying to become a Merit Source, they often attach a history of their achievement statistics. Speaking of the first batch of Merit Source assignments, there are still many things that need to be addressed, maybe they are stingy because they have difficulty finding worthy users in their post history reviews to be appreciated or have other activities outside the forum that cannot be abandoned, in the end, many monthly sMerit allocations are piled up.
Most merit source are handpicked by theymos and send them pm to inquire about availability, and as far as I know there are only a few of that apply to be merit source which are then selectively added to the source.
I would not say that the merit source is stingy especially since it is free work for them. In the past I've complained about the consistently high post quality requirement that multiple merit source maintain on both local or global board, but this assumption was eventually debunked when I studied how the system worked. You should know that you cannot expect all merit source to have the same methods and criteria, currently 111 merit source have different criteria and this will add to the uniqueness of the system. If 1-5 source are stingy, it doesn't mean that the other 106-110 source are also stingy.
We never know if haven't tried it, the opportunity needs to be given to non-merit source users who are very active in distributing sMerit to other forum members. I also found some Merit Source Applications that have not been accepted, I thought Theymos should give it a try as some local councils also need Merit Source.
Changes need to be made on a rotating basis to reduce potential problems, Theymos should be more active in overseeing stingy Merit Sources and immediately rotate with new Source. I think if done like this, Merit Source will be even more active in distributing monthly sMerit allocations to deserving users (please correct if I'm wrong).
I know that adding some merit source or replacing inactive ones can improve distribution across multiple board. As one of the users who have submitted merit source applications, I have never forced the admin to accept me because I think some people are still willing to help on the local board or maybe merited some of my posts which I then distribute to the local board. But of course my contribution won't be much improvement, but at least it will continue as long as I have sMerit. Unfortunately while now it has to stop because of 0 sMerit.