Why do it seems like merit begging, what is merit begging because as it seems now it all depends on user preference, what one sees as smart move may be seems by another as dumb (with regards to the upper rank members).

 Ranking up becomes difficult as time goes because there are a lot of members joining this forum though some are spammers, shit posters and others who go against the rule but there are others who also sticks to the rules and try to contribute in what way they can but did find it hard in ranking up, I guess that why Theymos created the merit source system and they work the way its convenient or  they see its more appropriate for them but currently it seems like there are few merit source (maybe they are few indeed or they have become tired of meriting others who later become shit posters or break rules or more focus on their local board or some other reasons) since there are now more good posters as time goes by ( keeping the fact that there are also more rule breakers ).
 OP the fact is Fillippone doesn't want any assistance because if he does he would have stated it, just as how LoyceV did here because this is among the post that inspired him to allocate merit this way.

But I don't think there is really any need for more merit source at the moment because there are likely gonna be more shit post merited since more smerits would be available and the standard for a good post would decrease or have a stunted growth as time goes by (I guess that the reason Theymos has not add any more merit source currently).