Don't take it negatively. Their vouches show that the community will profit if he becomes a merit source, not any particular person. Their vouches show the need for another merit source.
I still can't tell why Theymos has became silent on picking out merits source to the forum especially to local board as well. I have been trying to understand why he is not paying attention anymore or could it be he has just decided to quit accepting and appointing more source to the forum or what.The forum admins and Global moderators have never been too open regarding these things. It is about appointing merit sources and other forum-related things like creating a new local sub-forum, banning appeal threads, etc. It's not like that they did not see the applications. They have seen the application, but they don't feel it's necessary right now. You will likely see their response once things get approved. As Icopress also mentioned in the OP, when theymos appoints a new merit source, he will look for an application thread in meta, which is why Icopress created this thread.
Then making it open for everyone to know that the forum doesn't need any merits source application for now so that people won't keep applying for a source while the forum doesn't honor them. It's better the mod or admin make it clear to air and to everyone who has intention for such application to hold still than writing without approval. If you check at the meta section you would understand that there are series of application pipeline waiting to be approved but yet no response from either theymos regarding on their application progress.
will get the permission to serve as merit source in the whole forum someday 
