Everyone has their personal and own choice. Lauda has his reasons to leave the forum but I am confused why you are using his name on your thread. I think it is to get the attention of the members. It is your choice to leave or stay, and you can not guarantee what happens next. Don't have overconfident about anything, as long as you get benefits from this forum and your love for Bitcoin is intact, you will stay in the forum. But when you get nothing in return people like you will leave at the speed of flash.
It seems you are right, of course because it's hard to believe in words. They can say anything at the moment, like some bounty hunter at the time of ICO hype, IEO exploded. At that time many of them didn't want to leave the forum for any reason even though they had very good job, but after finally ICO and IEO and others disappeared then look how much forum user base is left now. While the new system adjustments on the forum also forced some users to leave, I can consider the merit system as one of them.
The forum's user base has been dropping day by day regardless of the reason, so even if the OP is planning on not wanting to leave the forum for any reason, then I think that was the original plan which could actually change for some reason.