Merlino seems to be the greatest of all mobsters to some of these guys for the simple fact that he's still on the street. He wasn't going to be made under Scarfo, Scarfo hated the kid, and I don't believe he was nominated by his father and uncle either, as he was too young at the time. He was certainly being groomed though, as he sat in on a lot of meetings Scarfo had with the Merlino's, Leonetti, Faffy & Tommy Del, Charlie White & Nicky Crow.

Merlino is certainly smart as in dodging wiretaps, and not spilling the beans to informants, because he's wary of that. But that's about it. He isn't smart for getting lucky and dodging hits. Him running back and forth down the block, while Colletti & Veasey were shooting at him, already having killed Michael Chang, isn't smart. He probably would've been better off just ducking behind a car or something, then perhaps he wouldn't of been hit at all. He got lucky, by the grace of god, or in his opinion, "The Devil", he survived that attempt with just an ass wound. He could've easily had been killed just like his best friend. Thats luck, not wisdom. Him driving off with a bomb tied beneath his car is also luck, but moreso stupidity on the part of Colletti & Veasey for putting a bum explosive underneath his car and expecting it to detonate. Most of those attempts were being done by Colletti & Veasey. Joey definitely got lucky that the two hitmen assigned to gun for him, just so happened to be perhaps two of the dumbest mobsters in Philadelphia.


If Merlino was so smart during his reign as "Underboss" with the lighting rod Natale in place, he would've found ways for his family to earn. He couldn't. He couldn't generate any money making schemes, and when he rarely did make money, he pocketed most of it and then spent it placing bets with his own guys using proffers, so he wouldn't be found out. And he didn't have the money to do so, because he'd never pay when he lost. Thus, putting a clamp on the earning power of some of his own guys who were deep into bookmaking, like Johnny Chang, and Big Ron Previte, just to name a few. The guy would sign off on truck hijackings, but then would have no one to sell the goods to, so the trucks would sit in some warehouse for months until they just decided to get rid of them. Most of the time the products in the trucks were little more than worthless anyway. His greatest heist that he signed off on, was a load of baby diapers, most of which he got for free to take home for his own new born children. Then he sold the rest on the street at an inflated price and again pocketed the cash and gambled it away. He also had a major hit with some toy trains, tv's & computers, but him and Ralphie Head moved those off, you think anyone else in the family saw any money from that? And that was literally the only heist he made any real money off of. Seriously, the guy couldn't earn at all, according to the informants from the era.