If you do not know yet, there is something like this: there are special members, called merit sources. There are merit sources which were chosen at the start of the merit system and there are those who were given this status after they gave 10 quality post which were not merited before. This should in theory help with merit distribution but this does not help with 2 problems in my view.
1) The merit abuse between familar members and moreover between alternative accounts.
2) Also this does not help to clear threads from shit posts ( i believe that there should be merits given for example 10 successfully reported low quality posts but this on other hand would put an additional strain on moderators)