I don't think the column A cells have to be merged just because they're blank. When I do this process manually, I just highlight the cell with text and the cells below it (that are in the same column) and merge them, keeping A cells intact (just moved up, along with the rest of the cells in the given row).

Re: # 2. No, VBA can merge them, but once merged...it can not.
I don't follow here. It cannot........merge with subsequent cells once merged?