I gotta say i have gotten over my initial reaction to this new merit system..I DO see a small hiccup in one of the objectives though. In an attempt to slow the rise of the spam posts, the top 20 threads or so(unpinned) are all about the Merit system...go figure.
This has to do with the desire of many people to participate to know better merit. I also feel that there are too many threads, even in the local section. But this is a form of active participate user, even they hope to get merit because in this meta thread is a lot of active participate.