Well said, especially the part regarding the algo and follows. Like you, I spend most of my time on my personal feed and just use hashtags to find more like-minded people who share my interests.
I found their is a lot of things you have to unlearn that legacy social media has conditioned into us especially when you 1st join. At the end of the day value will always be found, it's just a matter of when and where, imo.
I think what you described in your post encapsulates why #nostr is so comfy, the other is the community.