I was thinking very similar recently, based on how many users had previously earnt 10 and 250 merits compared to how many have now. I was trying to find data/charts on how many users had earnt this amount when DT1 eligibility had changed, in order to propose what it should be now, so that DT1 eligibility would remain at the same "difficulty" level.
I have data on eligibility:
https://loyce.club/trust/ranking/This data was archived a month after theymos implemented the current DefaultTrust system:
https://archive.ph/PmrZnIt'd be interesting to see how many users would remain eligible if the requirements for DT1 were increased from 10/250 to 100/500 for example.
From what I remember, it was intended to have low restrictions, so users who joined later still stand a chance.
If anyone can point me towards data earnt user-merit data from DT1 changes it'd be appreciated.
My overview of Merit earned (on very large HTML pages) starts
here. But it may be easier to just parse the data from
merit.all.txt (31 MB). This file has every Merit transaction and the exact time.
The eligibility difficulty should be maintained in my opinion, not lowered over time.
It's maintained for new users, and gets easier for older users. The alternative would be that new users barely stand a chance (kinda like how they can't catch up on Activity).