Unfortunately thumbnails/titles are everything, and this style works. YouTube tried (and somewhat succeeded) in making it better by rewarding engaged views, but now they've taken a step backwards by hiding that metric.

Of course, I'm the only one who watches YouTube the correct way, bookmarking the subscriptions tab, adding all of the videos from my creators to my watch later, then watching that playlist. I only hit up the home tab if I run out of stuff to watch.