I strongly support this new methodology for computing various elements of rank.
I believe that an objective evaluation of the essence of a person, their character, is best performed through the review of a combination of factors such as those that you identified. While a valid case could be made that the current Merit system is essentially a human-moderated form of judging and assessing overall "worth" of an individual to a community, such as through the relevance and quality of their posts (which on a forum is arguably the most important criterion), the separate computations make quick evaluation of a person and/or persona easy and convenient.
- Do not like impolite people? No problem, skip low politeness users.
- Value pretty pictures? Imagination is your metric.
I especially appreciate the graphical representation based on infinite iterations of Conway's Game of Life using the 10 MSBits of the rank elements. Personally, I would have thought the highest byte would be sufficient but I am not an expert in the area of forum rank dynamics.
I think you've managed to balance the various factors and implement a robust ranking system. I propose that this system is permitted to demonstrate its resilience and that perhaps adjustments should not be considered for some period of time to ensure that any "adoption issues" do not impact decisions to make adjustments seem necessary when in fact they are just artifacts from switching to this more resilient system. Perhaps the issue should next be visited one year from now, on April 1, 2019.
In any event, great job theymos. There will be little to object to or complain about now.
Best regards,
Ben