The macro level is that if everyone has less sMerits and there were far fewer merit sources, the result of having less merit to go around would be that the responsibility on spotting and rewarding good posts increases.
And in that case, I'd be more careful as how much I spend. Maybe I stopped sending 4 merits to newbies for just sharing an interesting thought, and so would other merit sources. The result would rather be that high quality posters would just rank up more slowly.
Precisely because there's a lack of new users with good posts I believe that we don't need new merit sources.
How do you know we lack new users with good posts? I believe we had quite a lot new users who made their entrance in 2022-23, and ranked up pretty fast, as they were worth it. Shitposters, on the other hand, find it difficult to rank up, as they should.