Many people don't care about the rank, many people don't care about anything in live maybe save money.
You can notice that many people are applying to be merit sources while some who are merit sources don't care to distribute.
No strong feelings, here is just a discussion forum.
Applying to be a merit source is a desire to contribute to the users in this forum, but I don't think merit source is a obligatory type of work where they have to spend all their merit every month. They can stop doing it for some time, it's just free work. True, some people don't care about the merit system, some don't care about rankings either. That should be normal for this forum.
I don't feel obligated as a merit source to distribute all of my merit every month. Some months I'm busier than others. When I do have free time I try to reward merit, or when I see a post I think deserves it I'll click the button. You are right about it being free work though. The biggest reason I do it is because I like making people happy and being a contributor. Handing out merit is a simple and easy way to do both.
I always considered VIP to be the highest rank here. We should all strive to reach that someday. I guess my question is, if you got rich in Bitcoin, how rich would you have to be to donate 50 BTC here, or even 10 BTC to become a Donator?