@cwagdev I designed my custom client around this exact thing ... OK, maybe not “designed”, it was more of an organic development 😛
Basically, I added a feature where people from posts can be filtered out of the main timeline. So, I add people who are prolific to lists, colour-code the lists, and then filter them out of the main timeline.
Well, not quite filter them out since that breaks timeline handling in a lot of ways, but I hide the content and put a tiny colour-coded strip which indicates which list the item came from.
That way, I can scroll through the main timeline easily and see the posts from the people I’m interested in and if I’m not busy, I can also expand the hidden list items I’m more interested in …
Works pretty well for me without getting too stressed out about how far behind I am …🙂