Your post is AMAZING!! I came here to say something you covered beautifully...

”Stalk” like-minded readers for recommendations. In a similar vein, if you find a user with similar taste—especially if they have a “favorite books” shelf that’s similar to yours—their profile can be a great source for book recommendations. It’s worth reading some of their reviews, though, to see if they like books for the same reason you do (eg, if I love Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” because of the prose and another reader loves the same book in spite of her descriptive writing style, we might not be a great fit).

That's 100% what I do - particularly for a specific genre. There's someone I found and follow where I pick up all my hick-lit and the like suggestions. She reads several books a week and I know her well enough to know which books are for me. Rarely a miss. Sometimes beyond amazing!

When I see a review that totally clicks with me - I'll start by doing a book comparison with the review writer. That's a pretty straight forward way to see if you have enough in common and which type of books you have in commom.