The part nobody mentions is that the search filter setup matters somewhat more than the photo review, and it makes a real difference. When you are only browsing free options, the chat-first sites tend to feel meaningfully worse than they are, so results vary more than you'd think.
Worth saying that the decision to write a profile that gives someone something to reply to did slightly more for me than switching platform, so results vary more than you'd think. Over roughly forty conversations I noticed the boost system behaving differently on the niche ones, but it is not the disaster people claim.
The moderation queue changed hardly at all over the last month, which most people notice within a week. Going by my own attempts, I'd widen the distance radius early on rather than read the last few pages of a thread before asking, since that is the part that actually moves the needle.
If you want a second opinion, flamedate has fewer complaints about anyone after something slower, so it is worth a look.