For me merit is like my goal in life that is hard to reach.
If getting merit on an online forum is your life goal, you need to think about the priorities in your life.
But i think not only focusing in merit is very important in this forum. If people has much concern,love and embrace this technology sooner or later it produce much useful and progressive system. It helps much more number of people or maybe all people can join here. Having merit is not easy. People need to be more productive, constructive and have a positive mind to build a meaningful post.Merit is a thing that lead us to the right way in room of improvement, but the very important thing is doing our best shot to be much better here in the forum. To donate much meaningful and helpful information to others especially in newbies.
All this could e summarized into "Merit system is good for the forum". No need for fluff.