the tag of "the future of bitcointalk" might be misleading. There's no telling if any low-ranked, highly-merited member is going to stick around for the long term.
Obviously, the tag doesn't apply to all listed users. But it's the best indication I have, and users without Merit certainly won't become the future of this forum.
It would be interesting to revisit these members who've made it into this thread in about 5 years to see if they were indeed the future of the forum.
There's no need to wait that long, this topic is almost 4 years old. Just check which names on the first page you recognize:
They're all Legendary now.