Should it be required to give credit to the OP or any of replies if you have let's say at least ten... when replying, that way Merits would circulate more!
It would be counterproductive, and actually disincentive people (with a certain amount of available sMerits) from posting, were they required to Merit when replying. Merits would actually circulate less as a result.
It’s quite usual for accounts to rack their brains early in the game, on how to get more merits flowing in the system (
I did after a month and a half or so), or devising ways to set a higher focus on lower ranks. After some time, one will likely see things in a somewhat different way, and whilst the more the merrier could be a thing, there is that factor related to the content that people post that should carry the weight, and to a highish degree it does. That is where the focus should be on, and if it becomes evident that tons of good posts go unmerited, then there would be a clear call for racketing the brains on how to move things along.
As things stand, there are many chances to earn some Merits here (post revision threads, signing messages and guessing games for example) that give an exceedingly easy entry point to earning Merits. But that should not blind people from the fact that the focus of Merits is on content, and that takes some effort to align with Merits.
Having said that, I’m all in for "the more eyes on the table the better" thing, but not forcibly imposed, and change driven by evidence rather than perception, in general terms.