posts that are already zapranked high on the frontpage are the result of the "race", which is comprised of early zaps from people who deliberately sort by new, or maybe see posts and comments earlier because they subscribed to the poster.

I'm still not familiar enough with all the various incentives and behaviors to have any confident opinion about the best way to encourage new folks to join this tactical zapping race. There is some value in learning it organically; after all, it would be really dumb if onboarding ended up turning the zap mechanism into a rewards-chasing casino.