Yeah, I'm not going to explain again for the 10th time in your topic that before the merit system existed, it was very easy to rank up (even though it's not difficult nowadays either, you just have to post with interest without thinking about the merits and it's usually ok, as long as you know what you are talking about or post interesting questions).

If you're interested to know, who "deserves" their rank from our actual criterias, you should install the BPIP extension, which distinguishes between earned merits and merits.

For example your profile appears like that :



While others appear like this: