Am sure many of the big guys here wouldn't have gotten to where they are now if the merit system was in place when they were newbies.
You are not right. And it's easy to prove. Look at the number of merits of the higher ranks participants. You`ll see that usually it is huge. And this isn`t because they are Sr. Members or Heroes. This is because they earned these merits. When the merit system was just launched, we were all essentially on equal terms. Yes, each rank had its own number of merits "by default". But then each of us could either earn, or not earn merits. I met on the forum Members, who had 83 merits (the original 10 + 73 earned) and Sr. Members with 253 merits (the original 250 + 3 earned). It isn`t difficult to see who is working better. However, such situations are exceptions rather than rules. Most often, we can see Members with 11 merits and Sr. Member with 323 merits. This means that the "big guys" aren`t just lucky to grow in rank before the introduction of the merit system - they really deserve it.
Secondly, your submission lacks the sense of motivation for newcomers.
Motivation for beginners should be not a pay rate, but the possibility of taking them to the forum community. Beginners can get here unique knowledge, communicate with coryphae in the crypto-currency area and share their original ideas. Instead, they focus on profane things such as earnings in signature campaigns, and think not about their own development at the forum, but about increasing their rank in order to make more profit. What they don`t take into account, however, is that this behavior leaves them behind the board of the present reality of the forum. And after endless spam and useless posts, the forum community won`t accept them.
Finally, majority of the people here started from what you guys might call "shitposts" before they learnt and became acquainted with the requirements of this forum.
Many newcomers are writing junk posts. However, those who really want to learn and comply with the requirements of the forum, grow in rank and receive merits. And noone calls them shitposters. Don`t think that "big guys" can`t distinguish non-acquaintance of a newbie, who is just adapting and trying to understand the topic, from the ignorance of participants who don`t even set a goal to learn.