I agree with your sentiments, bprew. Perhaps the jump from level 9 to 10 should be based on a vote of the current saints based on the prospect's contribution to the Monestary. Or perhaps some kind of relative scale:

• Top 0.5% XP Saint (approx 100 given the 20000 or so registered monks)
• Next 2.5% XP Pontiff
• Next 4% XP Bishop
• Next 8% Abbot
• Next 10% Friar
• Next 10% Monk
• Next 10% Scribe
• Next 10% Acolyte
• Next 15% Novice
• Last 30% Initiate

Something else related that was mentioned a while back (I'll fill in the link later...) was the once some people had reached Saint, their contributions tailed off quite dramatically - so perhaps some -ve XP per day (or week or whatever) not logged in would be an incentive to them keeping up their contributions.

However, looking at the Perl Monks stats main page (here) it would appear that over half of the 20000 registered users have only ever logged in once, and about half of the rest have never logged in at all. Meaning that of the 20000 registered users, only about 25% (28.86% to be pedantic) are actually contributing to the site.

So where's all this going? I don't know, but I do know that having 'Saint'hood being doled out to anyone who writes a couple of hundred mildly interesting nodes, as well as, say, Tye, merlyn or Abigail-II (or tilly, Erudil or Ovid, or ...insert your favourite contributor here...) who make (or made, in tilly's case) a massive and worthwhile contribution is a bit unfair to say the least. Perhaps the various non-XP related groups (or whatever you want to call them) that can only be bestowed upon Monks rather than automatically given out should be given more publicity on the Voting/Experience System node.

As an example of what I mean - given enough time, and provided they log in and use their votes and keep their views to themselves for a while, the likes of Alex the Serb and Olecram could be Saints alongside those worthy of the title.

rdfield