I'm on Torch and when I attend the nightly Hami'sm which could be 3 times in a week or 1 in 3 weeks depending on my mood, I usually take a HO on the first run and merits on the second run of the evening then I'm out.
We also have SNS (Saturday Night Synapse) every weekend running anywhere from 2-4 leagues plus 1 or more overflow league for people that show up for the Babbages beatdown. Last weekend there were 5 leagues, 28 Babbages, 1 Kronos and enough overflow to spawn a second Skyway. So plenty of merits and mini-monster salvage to go around.
Edit: Also, most folks end up with multiple 50's eventually, I'm a slow poke and only have around 5 of them in my roster of around 35 characters. I chose 1 to do the majority of my crafting and marketeering on the AH. She also funds most of my other characters with startup costs, I usually have multiple emails sitting with 5mil for new characters to grab when they are made that way they can get off the ground running from the get-go.