As far as I know, old members received airdropped merits according to their rank and activity. So, Full members received 100 airdropped merits to get their rank, Sr 250, hero 500, and Legendaries 1000. There are a lot of inactive accounts that have not earned a single merit other than the air-dropped merits. So, when I see high-rank accounts without earning a single or very little amount of merits, I tend to think those are sold accounts. The account changed hands. The account owner does not even know if they have a high-ranked Bitcointalk account because of their previous activity. So, if you see a Legendary member with zero earned merits, it means they did not earn it with their knowledge.
True. When the merit system was applied, any rank of old members got airdropped merits depending on their activities. OP seems having 100 merits got from airdropped merits, it means he was already a full member in 2017. He only got 1 earned merit so far. It indicates that OP is less active and he didn't make valuable posts. It is easy to check it, OP was never active in 2022, the latest post was on December 2021. He just woke up on July 2023, but he suddenly feels jealous with the way to earn merits. I guess OP doesn't know anything about merit system. He needs to learn it first, so won't misunderstood about how people earn merits.