I never made much use of the merit reward system in the old days, because everything was way too expensive. I had a chance to look at the prices in the merit vendors on Torchbearer, however, and they're way more reasonable. For example:
Uncommon IO recipes were 50-75 merits on the Live servers. On Torchbearer, I can't find any over 20.
PVP IOs were unavailable for Merits on Live. On Torchbearer, they can be had for 100 merits.
Archetype enhancements were 400 merits on Live, plus 25 million inf. On Torchbearer they're just 100 merits.
These are prices I can see myself working towards. I haven't gotten a chance to see the alignment merit prices yet, but I hope they're similarly reduced. I have very UN-fond memories of doing five alignment missions almost every day for two months to get my hands on a Gladiator's Armor +3% Defense IO, and I'm not eager to repeat that.