You're greatly underestimating the effect of good photos. As a bi guy, I've seen my share of both men's and women's dating profiles. The general trend: most profiles are terrible. Of the decent ones, women tend to have good photos, but shitty/non-existent bios, and the men tend to have good bios but bad photos. Only a small fraction of people combine both to make really compelling profiles.

So for men, the biggest improvement they can make is take more photos of yourself in hope for some good ones and maybe get some professional photos taken. What constitutes a good photo? In descending order of importance: 1) they want to be flattering. You'd think this would be obvious, but far too many profiles have photos that actively highlight negative features of their subject. If your hairline is failing, have photos with hats on. If you've got a beer belly, don't have side-facing photos. Etc. 2) They should suggest that you do fun things, and are thus likely to bring a potential date to such fun things. Nature shot, beach shot, interesting place shot. If you have some interesting hobby, maybe an action shot of you woodcutting/flying a model plane/intricately painting plastic figures. 3) Since this is a forum for tech workers, you probably have more discretionary income than average. *Subtly* demonstrate that.

Ultimately, what it boils down to is that everyone knows your profile pictures are going to be your absolute best photos of yourself, carefully crafted to make you look your best, overselling reality substantially. If you put bad pictures in your profile, people will STILL ASSUME THAT, and thus assume you look even worse.