With the cost reductions you mentioned, it felt to me like 50 merits kept pace with the purchasing power tip missions had in the old days, but 20 merits puts us behind where we were.
If I can go back to the point raised earlier about buying tip missions, I don't get how that's any sort of advantage. Maybe I don't have the proper speed gaming mindset, but what's the point? I always seem to get my next tip while I'm in the current tip mission, the only time I'm not ahead of the game like that is right after an alignment mission when the whole thing resets. What am I missing?