Bluesky has the best of both worlds: reverse chronological primarily, and then rich alternatives for all sorts of content. Some are analogous to lists on Mastodon (though seem much more heavily used on Bluesky to me) and others more advanced.
Reverse chronological can suffice if you’re spending all day looking at the timeline but algorithms can be helpful! Not all algos are engagement muck.
On Bluesky at least, you can remove all Bluesky created feeds, create your own feed algo's, and create specific user list feeds. You can also define mute words so that posts with those words never appear for you. Those mute words can also have a time window, in case some common word is temporarily annoying you.
I believe that you could create the experience which you described on Bluesky. This may also be possible elsewhere, I just happen to know about Bluesky.
It's largely how I use the platform. On most days, I am blissfully unaware of what "the discourse" is that day. I personally enjoy human curated lists of devs and scientists.
You guys do know there is a simple trending page and 'for you' suggestions in Mastodon, right? It does offer some algorithmic content, however the algos used are transparent and simple to understand and also do not prey on outrage and don't specifically optimise for max engagement.
Of course not maliciously pushing people's buttons comes with a price and they are probably not as popular, but IMO they are as far as we can ethically go, and are well suited to the needs of the fedi dweller, i.e. 'I'm kinda bored let's see what other people in the community are talking about'