French language Q&A Forum

Someone presented the example, "merci de m'aimer" which I believe means, "please love me" rather than "thanks for loving me" and directed them to this lesson. However, "merci de m'avoir aimé" doesn't, in my mind, capture the sense of "thanks for loving me" as an ongoing action/effect.  After digging further, I found some texts such as, "merci de m'aimer autant" and "merci de m'aimer" on reverso. I'd like to test my instinct and the found examples. Is this an exception where the construction will retain the sense of thanks rather than a polite request, due to context, or are these examples incorrect?

Tangential follow up question: I understand "du cadeau" will be interpreted sarcastically, but is this only for physical gifts? For example, I have found a bit of text with "merci du cadeau de ta présence". Does the modification into a more conceptual gift change meaning, or is this simply incorrect, wanting instead, "merci pour le cadeau de..."?

Merci de m'éclairer! 

Nous aurions dû partir plus tôt.

This phrase came up in a test where I had to fill in the “should have” segment with “partir” ...should have left.

I hesitated because I was thinking “partir is a House/être verb.

Please instruct why être verb rules don’t apply in the case.