I also think links-only is annoying as a general construct, but have made my peace with it as probably a "revealed preference" thing -- some people just don't have anything much to say, and if you tried to force them to say something, it would be garbage. This way at least you don't incentivize garbage. They could still surface things I might like to find.

It would be interesting if there was some sense of "localized reputation" -- I understand that SN has a global status / reputation score (forget what it's called) but if there was also a local one (e.g., per user), it would be helpful in some cases. For instance, I tend to like things that the majority of readers probably don't (e.g., contrary / critical takes about some btc sacred cows), so submissions that might be just my jam would never be seen.

Solving this well would be a research problem. It would also introduce tradeoffs that they might not want to make.