Great insight and I also tried to address the curation curve and how it works after HF25 - Deciphering the curation rewards algorithm on the Hive blockchain.
Nevertheless, since I have joined Hive back in 2017 what I always loved to do without any scope behind it is to go through the Newest posts on the blockchain. This would provide a chronological timeline of what's been posted and allow me to identify useful articles that might be overseen if not voted on or curated by whales. It's one habit that I still do and I use curated content only when I don't have time at all during the day and I don't want my voting power to stay at 100%.