I've not done much better than you, but I know that from what I can observe, the best places for merit for me, which you will get from moderators and even staff, is if you help Bitcoin users with issues using Bitcoin, or answering technical questions about Bitcoin, or discussing technical issues in constructive manner.
I admit, I don't have the technical knowledge for these things, so I don't expect to gain very much merit. I'm sure it's the same for most people. So if merits are super important to you, you need to brush up technical knowledge.
In that sense, I think it's a great system. Even I know now who are the guys who know a lot and those who don't, just from merits.
This is of course generic. I know some people also gain merits from being contributive in other areas like even gambling.
I also do not have any technical knowledges and experience with many wallet's and exchangers to be super helpful to users who have this kind of problems. But I saw my own how stupid comments or sarcastic ones gain merits easily.
For those people who cheat this forum rule against smerit will have two possibilities i.e trade merit which also I haven't known how smerit being traded, I meant what is the price that must be spend by some users to buy one merit and second I believe there many users who give smerit to their alt account to push rank up, I often see there are many users who give smerit just for bounty report that I think it's nonsense.
I can an idea of how merit trading is happening. People simply make a deal on local boards, through PMs or connect each other on social networks.