I think your ideas and those others have posted might be good ones. However, someone would really need to look at the data or do trial balloons to see what's the best course of action.
The point of a cutoff was to make the pool a little smaller to increase visibility for comics that are underexposed. It's arbitrary. It could be 3,000 or 5,000 or 1,000. The goal is to allow recently updated comics to get a few hours of exposure on the first page each time they post. Right now when I post, I last a half hour to an hour before I'm off the first page.
If Tapas wanted to create a new Discover tab, they could also set requirements. For example, they might say you need a minimum of 15 or 20 updates and have 100 subs. (This would knock me out but it would give other people more exposure time. I, in turn, would have an incentive and goal to work toward.)
All my suggestions are just suggestions to stimulate debate. The real issue is that unless you get featured somehow, or you are a master of social media marketing, your comic, even if it is a quality one, will most often go unnoticed.
I see the Tapas management as a partner, and do feel that they are more engaged with their creators than many other sites. They do want to foster a vibrant community. But they still have to be financially viable. Somewhere, I think, there needs to be a better balance between promoting a small group of premium and popular comics and also spotlighting new talent.
