I'm at 12,000 right now, also looking at the New tab first, bit with a little twist. I check a few of the tags first that won't usually show as good thumbs. Things like #fiction, #freewrite, #poetry and #dsound. I feel that by going for a thumb driven approach to curation, you are missing out on creative posts that aren't directly expressed by the thumbs in the way that artwork and photography are.

Then only after that, if I have still some vores left, I look at the unfiltered new tab for artwork and photography tumbs to see if there is anything good, and for stuff like sports, FB type kitten pics, investment stuff, etc that is getting CCC rewards that need attenuating, or if also using self-votes, maybe a bit stronger down vote. I know it is not a popular opinion, but I do think down votes for tag abuse are as important as up votes.