At some point, you can also tell if a user has an interesting post when the merit they received comes from these Chipmixer participant regardless of their rank. Well, maybe I'm using Chipmixer as a measuring tool too much to see if the user is making sense or just posting nonsense if they are being merited by these guys.
That's a wrong way to look at it. Not trying to discredit chipmixer participate merits but don't forget the participants there are humans and might not always be right. This is just like meriting certain users because they're part of a well known campaign. An argument could be since the post wasn't a spam, it did deserve the merit (not minding the weight of merit) it got but neglecting the other users that put in some effort into their contributions is where I have an issue with.
For example I have been merited for my contribution while neglecting the users ahead of me. While you could say that, those user post wasn't as informative as mind but provided they did put in some effort and wasn't spamming, they deserve some encouragement.
Meriting me just because I have been known for my contribution isn't want the merits system was introduced for. You're to merit any worth post not minding the users history or reputation on the forum. Such act encourage more new members to put effort into their post and not get discourage with the whole myth of forum favoring certain members.