The honest answer is that its just annoying. If they want it to take longer to get merits, they can just award less xp. They don't have to add annoying crap to the game.

"Oh hey, we made it super easy to get merits, but we balanced it by making it depend on lights that you lose if you attempt to use them." - LAME.

This trend of making every single thing that they enhance have an "equal" negative effect attached to it for "balance" is really played out.

All of that is irrelevant though, because the whole reason you popped in here was to say "Shut up. You guys are just lazy.", which doesn't deserve any more of a response than it already received in the first post.

Also, please note that you still haven't formulated a 2 sentence post, or answered any of the quite valid questions about your motives in posting here, or answered any of the (again valid) questions as to what exactly a 30 merit limit achieves.