I was thinking the same and in addition to that I already posted my idea to even integrate the merit into the activity rank
The activity number is determined in this way:
time = number of two-week periods in which you've posted since your registration
activity = min(time * 14, posts)
We would have used:
activity = min(time * 14, posts,
merit)
your formula would make merit as higher importance than posting itself
while the idea of merit is appraising the
quality of the post not the
quantity of the post
with your formula, people will not raise in rank at all unless he gets merits
imagine someone's been posting one post/day for 1 year = 365 posts = 365 activity
with your formula he will be newbie forever if he hasn't received any merits
week2: min(14, 14, 0) = 0 and a year later week52: min(364, 365, 0) = 0
and for that reason, he would still have newbie limits for posting, PMs limit and can't post images
I would support fine tuning the merits with some limits just like putting a limit on activity gain/week