But still, as I look at this post 1 hour in with 28$ and no comments it does make me wonder how this is precieved by newcomers to the site.

Only if they discover it in the first hour or two. Many of my posts take time to gather comments for a couple reasons, firstly because it is longer people who often read my work will save it for later, secondly because it is often the kind of stuff that takes time to comment on, people wait for when they have time to comment. If you read through the comment sections of most of my posts, you will see that the level of comment is quite good and thought goes into the replies, in both directions.

For me the reward pool is becoming more of a Patreon model than about content discovery and I feel it is getting more difficult for new bloggers to break through this wall.

It was always going to happen by design and most likely, the rewards from the HIVE pool will stop completely on content, as there will hopefully be many rewarding pools through SMTs, each designed to empower creators in different ways.