Broadly agree, though I would weight whether messaging costs anything once you start higher.
The reason I stopped recommending some of these is whether the sorting can be trusted.
About 50 profiles into the room, the pattern around whether the filters survive a refresh became obvious.
Where it works it works fast; where it does not, what the free ceiling looks like in practice is usually the reason.
After a few weeks on the room the only question left was how quickly it starts asking for money.
Most of my useful conversations on that one started midweek, which says more about whether the interface gets in the way than about timing.
Different crowd on Datedesire if you want a smaller pool, which suited me better.