For me, the big difference maker is that I no longer feel like I'm shouting into the void. Quite often, I'd see a post, I'd have an opinion/comment/thought about it, start writing a comment, and then think "Why bother? This post already has 5000 comments, and default sort is hot. Nobody will read the 5001st comment".
Maybe it's just my monkey brain, but after a day of adjusting, it definitely feels better to have 2+ upvotes and/or 1 comment so I know somebody at least considered what I said rather than a buried comment that nobody will ever see.