In my experience most faculty who are achieving distinction are able to obtain additional resources to continue the effort. And indeed early in one's career, major efforts are usually made to assure that the opportunity is there to do so. As track records develop, the resources tend to flow more and more to those whose excellence is clearly demonstrated, though this tendency may vary among the arts, humanities, the social sciences, and the biological and natural sciences. In a world of limited resources, fairness requires rationing, and rationing in a merit-driven environment means those whose excellence is demonstrated must be favored in allocating those limited resources. I think it suggests a minimalist approach to formal rules and formal processes and a dedication to shared governance and to colleagueship.
Formal rules tend to work in exactly the opposite way to rewarding merit and excellence.
For example, faculty might propose a set of definitions or standards which focus primarily on privileges and only very secondarily on obligations - obligations which are not focused on achievement and excellence but on minimum obligations at best. They might suggest, for example, that continuous improvement is not the requirement for tenured faculty, but merely that they should meet the standards they met as assistant professors. What is lost in both of these positions is the striving for excellence, the development of new truths, and the meeting of obligations to students and to the society that supports our endeavors. Such a situation de-professionaIizes academic life and makes the need for academic freedom a moot question because our goals have moved from excellence to the mundane questions of which personal benefit can be extracted from the system. Fairness is still an issue worth discussing because it is possible that both faculty and administrators may use irrelevant criteria in determining the excellence of candidates for faculty positions, in determining the worth of an individual's work when it is submitted for consideration for the offering of tenure, or the shared work of colleagues in a department.