Honestly, the slow approach tends to produce better outcomes than the volume one — that has been consistent for me across a few different platforms. How do dating apps rated by experts compare to user reviews on the app store?
Patience is genuinely the differentiator, dull as that sounds — that is roughly where I landed after a lot of trial and error.
Support response time is a decent proxy for how the site is run — it is the single change that made the most difference.
If it helps, treating it as a numbers game is the fastest route to burning out — it sounds obvious written down, but it took a while to land.