What an idea but OP's reason will not convince members to support or even use this feature if ever this is installed, merits is a reward system that tells the creator of the post that he created very good content, merits and reputations are what define our account here so why would you want to restrict other from meriting your posts.
And by generating smerits you'll be able members to rank up and commend their posts, OP mentioned sending merits instead to ordinary people, even though we are on different ranks we are still equal here.