I've fallen back to mostly just using the Recent (Following) tab, which means I miss a lot, but at least it's mostly relevant. I'll often search on a topic that I see on my youtube channels that I want to dig into.

My biggest complaint, is that even paying for it, you still see (a lot og) ads... I'd be happier paying for it, and getting no ads than the blue checkmark. Also, the UX on the post delay/edit with blue is annoying as hell.