Fast Track vs. Guided Communication

There seem to be three major things important to a successful online dating profile:

1. Pictures - lets be honest here, no matter how great your profile is no one is going to consider someone that is horrendous looking (or worse doesn't have any pictures posted at all, because that could mean worse than horrendous). I'm not saying everyone out there is totally shallow, but if there is no chance of physical attraction, there is no chance at a lasting relationship. And that is the goal in this dating game (at least for me, so shouldn't I hold the same standards for my potential matches?).
2. Profile information - once you have seen the pictures, you then commit to reading the sometimes obnoxiously long and trying-way-hard to be funny "about me" section of your match's profile. This information includes probing questions such as: List 3 Things you cannot live without, Other than your parents who has been the most influential person in your life, Your idea of a romantic evening includes...If you can nab a total stranger's attention in these sometimes repetitive questions, you've done a great job.
3. Preferred mode of communication -this is the way in which you choose to go about "getting to know" your matches. Either you jump straight to "open communication" - eHarmony's answer for the ADD daters where you start right off the bat with a mini-email type chat box. Or you can opt for the safer, but understandably more time consuming "guided communication" where you enter a series of questions where the website helps by provided staged questions on an increasingly personal scale. The goal of which is to make it to the "open communication" stage without losing the interest of your match (there is always the option to "CLOSE MATCH" at any point if you find the answers do not actually match you after all).

At this point, I am adequately satisfied with all three of these major online dating qualifications. I meticulously selected pictures of myself doing the various activities that I enjoy, making sure I looked at least decent (which can be hard to find a picture of myself drinking wine without looking totally smashed). I worked tirelessly on my answers on my profile page, choosing witty (well what I thought was witty) quips to keep men's short attention span intrigued. And decided I felt more comfortable going with the slower, more controlled "guided communication" option, while leaving the ability for those "fast-track" kind of guys to still have the ability to communicate with me.

I was all set and ready to start managing my many suitors, which had soared to an unreasonable 200+ (I kept receiving matches during my hiatus, so, yeah...six months time leaves a lot of unseen profiles to sort through). Thus, I was in desperate need of some major tweaking of my profile settings. I proceeded to minimize my search to only include men between the ages of 23-30, white/Caucasian, within 20 miles, non-to-occasional smokers, Christian, wants kids, and college-educated. I realize this is slightly narrow, however, you'd be surprised how many of the matches remained after my heavily restricted filters. Left with about 30 matches, I began to click through and quickly "CLOSE MATCH" with many I did not immediately vibe with pictures or profiles.