I agree that something has to be done with spam and accounts farming. Let's hope that in few months we all learn how to use merit system and finally members will award others with their precious merits for valuable content not only because they are friends or know each other. As for now a lot of merits come from merit sources and legendary members. Other people are holding their merits for a better occasion, I think.
Lately, I have supported one member and after some time he quotes my post and says "Thanks you helped me a lot I appreciate this" and continues discussion asking me questions but not awarded my post with merits. I didn't support him to receive merits. I put myself in his situation and just thought that this will be fair to do. Didn't thought about merits when I was writing my supporting post. But later I started to think about this situation and +1merit screams louder than 1000 words. Something like this happens to me not the first time that I am quoted, people engage in discussion with me but rarely somebody gives merits.
I haven't made a lot of friends here in all these years because I thought that forum is not a social media portal. My big mistake.
Like I said let's hope that with time abusers will have no more merits to give and random members get used to this system and there will be no problem for anybody to give a merit or two to somebody who helped you or just for the post you liked.