Yeah, hashtags have been a great source for discovering I treating notes and users.
I know what you mean about feeling reluctant to use them tho. There's also the issue of people using hashtags just for visibility eg on something like Asknostr which feels spammy but that is somewhat a failure of discovery mechanisms (almost as bad as asking people to repost notes for sats, that feels the most spammy to me).
Niche hashtags and topic hashtags can be great, although it is perhaps revealing how little there can be on certain topics (that you can find at least). Then the generic hashtags or hashtag nostr, plebchain, bitcoin seems somewhat pointless.
Bluesky does really well with their feeds, but they generally have a wider userbase and broader topics.
nostr:nprofile1qqs8qy3p9qnnhhq847d7wujl5hztcr7pg6rxhmpc63pkphztcmxp3wgpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qgmwaehxw309a6xsetxdaex2um59ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hsz9nhwden5te0dehhxarjv4kxjar9wvhx7un89uqaujaz and nostr:nprofile1qqs06gywary09qmcp2249ztwfq3ue8wxhl2yyp3c39thzp55plvj0sgprfmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdakszxmhwden5te0w35x2cmfw3skgetv9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d56f7pmw seem to think topic-relays are a potential way forward. I'm too clueless to follow the conversation on it tho. But posting it here as you may also be interested.