The best outcome so far imo is that I actually want to look at Trending. Not because of its content necessarily, but because I am motivated to do something about how it looks.

This is only positive, no matter what reasons people may have to pay attention to it imo. Because with more eyeballs being on Trending the value of having one's content there goes up a lot compared to when most users take it for granted to be a depressing dumpster.

Hopefully, this result in more demand to have one's content at Trending generally. Combined with an additional effort to make sure that content that finds its way there are seen as deserving its spot by others.

So far so good imo. Although I'm still waiting to see the effect on comments and small user/community motivation. Still need a lot of work to ensure good curation takes place there.