Precisely because there's a lack of new users with good posts I believe that we don't need new merit sources. At this point in my opinion new merit sources should only happen if less active ones are removed and their sMerits rescinded. When forum activity from new users goes down merit sources should ideally decrease, not increase.
It implies that you consider merit sources necessary only for the development and encouragement of newbies. But they evaluate other ranks in exactly the same way. And it cannot be said that beginners need merits more than higher ranks. Moreover, the forum does not become a less active and interesting place because there are no motivated newbies writing quality posts. I personally find it more interesting to observe the development of those members who have already walked a certain path here, and who value this experience and skills acquired at the forum. For me it is more important rather than to look for newbies, trying to lure them with merit for some repetitive questions.
Judging merit by its intended function isn't something bad, is it? Of course there's also other acceptable reasons to give merit. When there's an oversupply of something we become less caring about how we spend it. Much like with USD. A car used to be 500 USD. However as governments keep printing more, numbers become meaningless. A handful of people have thousands of merits, which isn't a bad thing really.
The odd thing here is that there's a very distinct lack of new posters with valuable information in this forum. And the question that arises here is if there's good enough reason to justify adding more merit sources if this situation persists.