I just read http://sarah.thesharps.us/2014/09/01/the-gentle-art-of-patch-review/ and it made a lot of sense to me as a way to speed up the first response a new patch gets.
"Instead of putting off reviewing first-time contributions and thoroughly reviewing everything in the contribution at once, I propose a three-phase review process for maintainers:
1. Is the idea behind the contribution sound? 2. Is the contribution architected correctly? 3. Is the contribution polished?"
The post author, a Linux kernel developer, goes into more detail in the post; it's worth reading even if you decide this approach isn't your style.
(Reminder: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Gerrit/Code_review/Getting_reviews and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Gerrit/Code_review are worth re-skimming.)
Sumana Harihareswara Senior Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation