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Time-invested meritocracy?

That's not really a value. The fact that you are playing a game, single player or online, implies that you have some time to dedicate to it.

Even if you play God of War or a Final Fantasy in your house you are going to be stronger and improve if you dedicate time to it.

What's important isn't how often you can log, how much time passes from a game session to the other, or how long the session is. What's important is that you can still enjoy your time whenever you decide to play the game. And that the fun you have is about the best that the game can offer you.

The point isn't about being the biggest one or the richer one. The point is about playing the game and having fun. Having all the best fun that the game can offer easily accessible for the largest group of people. Not for a minority, a sub group of players who's richer than the other.

The point is: I play ten minutes and I want them to be as valuable and worthwhile as the ten minutes of another player who played for a week five hours each day. I don't care if he's playing another chunk of content. What is fundamental is that what he does doesn't have a negative influence on my experience. That I can still play the game at my pace without any loss.

Lum explained this quite well:
- Make the game world RMT-resistant - by that I mean make the economy liquid enough that players can participate on their own labor and gain what they feel is enough of a reward whether or not someone else “inherited a lot of money”

So not the idea that everyone is uniformed. But the idea that richer or bigger players just won't get in the way of the fun for those players who don't share the same wealth.

The only time-invested meritocracy is the one who is worthwhile for the game and positive for everyone. The most dedicated players who spend a lot of hours in the game are important and should be rewarded because often they are community builders. So they can take the role of leaders and provide a positive context for everyone else.

For an example about these points I'd take WoW. Then cut all the cases about the epic mounts, cut the endgame, and then look at the number of players in percent who went through RMT practices outside those cases.

I believe that the rate is really, really low. And I believe that it's because the rate is low (read as: the game is always fun) that the game is successful.