Although it’s a little less convenient than just remembering across refreshes, you can set a default sort in your profile if there’s a particular sort you like.
That being said I find myself hopping between Top Day and Hot so I can only start on one or the other. Would be nice if it just remembered.
You say “only” 6 months ago but it’s surprising to me just how quickly this time has passed.
I was a Reddit every day user pre-Lemmy. I happened to get linked to something there yesterday and saw all my sub’s “last visited” dates at 6 months. It’s crazy how easy it was to go cold turkey and I haven’t seen a need to go back.