When I'm actively following the site (visiting 3+ times a day), I primarily follow the new comments page. I only read top posts when I see that there's an interesting discussion going on about one of them, or if the post's title seems particularly interesting. (I do wind up reading a large portion of the top posts sooner or later, though.)

I have the 'recent posts' RSS feed in my reader for when I'm not actively following the site, but I only click through if something seems very interesting.