I've had a similar transition here - I've pruned almost all high-volume blogs from my Google Reader, and focused more on people whose opinion I value very highly, Twitter, or social news sites (HN/Reddit/etc.)
So far it's worked very well. I still seem to find out about everything I'd care about, but have a post volume on Google Reader of around 60 posts a day. I star anything longer I'm interested in for later reading on iPad/iPhone (either through Reeder or Instapaper).
I probably sort through several times more tweets, but that's something I'm far more likely to do when I have 30-60 seconds - so it's spread out throughout the day, and anything longer winds up in Instapaper for me to do at a later date.
In short: Try social filtering. Find people who share interests and blog/Tweet/etc. about them, and let them be your filter.
So far it's worked very well. I still seem to find out about everything I'd care about, but have a post volume on Google Reader of around 60 posts a day. I star anything longer I'm interested in for later reading on iPad/iPhone (either through Reeder or Instapaper).
I probably sort through several times more tweets, but that's something I'm far more likely to do when I have 30-60 seconds - so it's spread out throughout the day, and anything longer winds up in Instapaper for me to do at a later date.
In short: Try social filtering. Find people who share interests and blog/Tweet/etc. about them, and let them be your filter.