Ratimov himself never stated it that members should stop applying to the thread, what he meant was applying here does not guaranteed receiving Merits from him but other merit source or members with enough smerits could as well pick users from here and help, else if this thread isn't serving the purpose for it creation Ratimov himself would have lock the thread to end the merit help for newbies.
Absolutely right that mate this threads has not lock yet so it means it will runs over and over, even if ratimov sometimes can not pick or fulfilled the merits of some user who are applying here then if someone has a huge heart and want to send their few sMerits to the applicant then they will free to do that.
My assumption is that Ratimov has another reason why this thread is not locked, since the Op is no longer actively managing this thread, there are still generous people who are willing to help anyone to quickly rank up.
Ratimov has considered everything wisely, as long as this Thread is still open to the public there will always be a cycle of merit here.
Let Ratimov rest for a while, maybe he's tired or a lot of other things make him miss some apps here.
Hopefully he'll be back soon because the forum really needs generous people like him.