Yes, it is a closed system. That is absolutely deliberate and intended.
It prevents members of OOC cliques from loading each other up with medals so as to look more trustworthy, and ensures that medals flow, by and large, from one place: Tom.
Some of you may remember the old "trust level" system, where global trust flowed outward from Tom, and everyone could state that they trusted other players, thus generating personal and global trust levels for everyone. The medal system is partially an attempt to replace that with something a bit less...stigmatic, but it does have some of the same goals.
That just makes it all the more prone to abuse, while keeping people who deserve medals left out in the dust. All it takes is one person from an OOC clique to get enough medals that they can give out medals to others from their clique. Then they begin giving it to other members of their clique until they can give out medals. It becomes a vicious cycle, fueling rather than stopping OOC cliques from giving out medals to others in their clique.
