Merit was never introduced to make it easier for people to rank up. If you do the research and take the time to post something constructive, then people will appreciate that and they will award you some of their sMerit.
At one stage just after this merit system was introduced, I wanted to be generous by rewarding lower ranked members with some sMerit for "average" posting quality, but this quickly backfired, because I received a shitload of PM's from newbies with requests to Merit them for "below" average posting. So I decided not to do that anymore, and these PM's decreased drastically.
I now take a lot of time to grade these posts and if they are of a high quality and very constructive, then only will I award merit to the posts.
<sMerit is like a Gold medal, if you work hard for it, then you will receive it.>