Re: Title: Merit? What Is This Mysterious Beast and How Do I Catch It?
That said, despite my best efforts to post thoughtfully (and avoiding any “please give me merit” nonsense), I haven’t earned any yet. I know merit isn’t something you chase directly, but I’d really appreciate some constructive feedback from experienced members on how to improve my posts and increase their value to the community.
The way you described it, you make it look like you have been on the forum for some time like few months during which you wrote hundreds of posts yet failed to get any merit, while in fact you registered yesterday and wrote 8 only posts so far. 
So yeah, don't expect to get merit each time you wrote "throughtfull posts" and I don't know why you even got that impression. Just write normally about stuff you are interested about and merit will come.