Yup I agree with you there. Newer users without an audience have a weird gamble - create longform content that is valuable, or, create smallform content because it's not likely to get rewards in the short term?
That is a tough one.
I'd posit one approach is to create high quality, "medium-form" content of about 500-1,000 words + some photos, etc, to try and attract votes from upvote trails like Curie, OCD, Sndbox-Alpha, and many others.