Great initiative, but I don't think that you will find Newbie who made over 300 reports. Usually, they came here for spamming, not to report spam. And these users who making reports, I don't think that they are struggling to get Merit.
Agree, great initiative. Though 300 is quite a lot.
I just hope this won't attract some merit mob (creating bunch of brand new users making wrong topics just to create opportunity to report them).
Main problem I see: This is not a get merit quick scheme (which is what most users are looking for at the moment). So i don't think much users going to apply here.
But I'm pretty sure if they would give same efforts and time they are spending now in bounties to scan through forum and start reporting it would not take that much time.
There is lot of of reportable topics/posts (and new ones appear every few second).
So NEWBIES, go for it. Merit your merit.