My two cents: The truth is that they don't absolutely need to merge. And we're not trying to force them to merge. Decknique is still there if you don't happen to like / believe in what we're doing around here.
Decknique is no longer accepting submissions, however, and because of that, we're hoping to build a solid community for cardistry in these forums. All we're trying to do is provide a new place for people who choose to participate. But, we can't do it alone. We need your help. This is a brand new site. We can build this community from the ground up with constructive suggestions for improvements and new features. As soon as we begin to see a consensus arise for certain features, we'll start actively working on implementing them (more forum categories, for example). It may take a little while (we've only been up for a week now), but it will happen.
With people like Richard and Dan & Dave around here, I would argue that this is probably going to turn into a very cool place for this community to grow and advance, but that's just my opinion. If you don't agree, we're not closing Decknique, so you're welcome to hang out there.
Dana