This is so true, merit system is far from perfect, for example I see many posts that I think deserve at least some merit, but I'm always out of smerit, and I know that I have no chance of becoming a merit source, because that position is for very established forum users only.
Hope there could be a workaround for this, like if one established member has simply lost smerit, maybe it could be forwarded to a more established forum user so that other newbie forum users could be recognized somehow (if deserving).
You didn't understand what the poster wrote, many times users that aren't merit sources may want to give merits to a post, but have none to give, so they skip the post as they can't merit it; but
Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source can help. What hatshepsut93 meant was he also finds himself in that position and is not a merit source.
Merit sources are established members, who get refilled with smerits every month to give them to good posts on the forum, though I consider hatshepsut93 a very good user and should apply to be a merit source if he feels the need to.
Finally, smerits don't get lost, you send them to good posts and a newbie cannot be recognized or established, it's takes a lot of time to get that status, and efforts to.