Thank you for a very valuable post, I do appreciate it. And I believe this is the kind of post that deserves merit. not the kind that busts you, you know. I keep facing those kinds more often than the kind you just did. And as far as I know from the forum rules, the merit's initial purpose was to award value, and useful comments and to distinguish between a quality user and a trash user. but busting is not a quality activity at all, nor an action a quality user does. but hey just stating my personal openion!
With that being said, I am not saynig you are busting, don't get me wrong, I just said that there are many occurances that happen on the forum not only specific to my situation and they get awarded. That is unfair!
I can understand your concerns that the biggest problem for beginners is to upgrade their memberships, which cannot happen without earning merit points. But believe me, this is not a problem at all, because if you share good posts that provide helpful ideas to the community, it will surely be liked and members will give you some merits.
For your information, there are merit sources in almost all boards and their role is to distribute merit points to worthy publications.
If you intend to stay with us in the forum, I advise you not to think about merit points and focus on learning and sharing your experiences with the group. After that, you will notice how your knowledge has evolved, and your membership will certainly have upgraded over time.