You should be punished for not spending merits.
Theymos is well aware of that, that's why he introduced merit sources. It's also added on the merit page, that it's useless to store your Smerits, according to theymos sometime In the future he could consider decaying Smerits of Smerits hoarders.
I often feel so band since I have no merits to give anyone and I see nice posts everyday..
We all feel or have felt that way sometimes, but you know you can apply to be a merit source, maybe theymos just might choose you.
I have even seen many times even long term users give merits to people who are admins and do not need them and to people who are already legendary. WTF even.
Even if such users may not need to rank up anymore, How else would users appraise their good posts, if not through merits, and if they do not earn merits, how are they to merit other quality posts, which you already complained is missing.
Introverted people are doomed. How is that a fair system?
It's a discussion forum, users should be extroverts in here!