This good situation cannot be separated from people like you. merit sources and people who are beginning to understand how to use the merit system well.
There is a change in the mindset of some bounty hunters who are currently starting to think that the results obtained in bounties are not worth the time. They started targeting bitcoin paid signature campaigns that forced them to post something of higher quality and earn merit. I don't think they all really improve the quality of their posts and understand the merit system well because some of them can also stop paying attention to the quality of their posts once they are in the campaign. Their merit stats stop somewhere after their target is reached. Most of them try to earn their merits by posting spam posts on their local board and some even brought accounts from account sellers. Recently spam posts have increased significantly in the local threads for merits and as you stated many of their stats stop after a certain amount of merits have been earned.
Their target is to earn merits for rank-up so that they can join the signature paid campaign. The main purpose of contributing to the forum is missing here so I doubt what level of motivation they have to improve their post quality.
I managed to have Sr member merit count but activity is lacking. I am still a full member. 
