Hmm well sometimes people write about supposed '++++' experiences (++++ would mean life-changing and transformative) but they don't sound in any way like they have changed recently, rather casual instead. I am tempted not to believe those accounts and substitute 'strong +++' which is also something to be excited about but without the lasting insight.
Personally I have had a lot of +++ and stronger trips, and some of them are exceptional in the sense that I had a NDE / rebirth experience for example, but they don't necessarily have to change me. A whole number of trips were transformative in a small way, if only to reconnect with some deeper part of myself that I easily tend to forget and ignore when things get very difficult and being very mindful about it just seems too painful. In that sense, tripping once every 3 months can often feel transformative: I can let go of the shit that stacked up emotionally and start off again from a more mindful position, relieved, but that hardly changes anything about my situation. If all other things stay the same, I am bound to end up again in an ignorant place. Well then, have I really changed to begin with?
The answer depends on what constitutes the change for you... therapeutic effects will have been beneficial to my state - in that sense I am changed. But deeply, my motivations, convictions, my mission in life - to uproot those is much more dire.
Therefore I think that there is a gradual range from 'profound feelings that turn out to be superficial temporary phenomenology' to 'real but temporary catharsis' to more and more deeply stirring matters.
The more real and changing experiences are, the higher I consider the potential for trauma to be as well. There are advancements in our spiritual awareness we are not ready for on a level of emotion and maturity, I experienced that myself. After every of the few ++++ trips, I came out a changed person, I feel like I can never go back to being the person I was before and integration of the experience happens on a scale of years, not days.
Anyway even if I think that immediate responses to intense trips by definition tend to be exaggerated (and the true meaning will have to be proven and clarified chronically), IMO that doesn't mean we should go and underestimate the potential of these experiences.
And if you have hardly any experience at all apart from a few or a single trip(s) that were disappointing in this respect, you don't really have anything to base any conclusions on. Because there are so many psychedelics, and so many set & settings... and it is quite easy to miss the special bullseye with it.... chances are it will just take some time until it is the right time for you.
You talked about expectations and self-suggestion in the OP, well I do think that prepping yourself mentally for special altered states of consciousness often involves some self-suggestion. Expression of intent, ritual, such are artificially guiding practices to prepare yourself. Expecting to be transformed prepares you by believing that this is possible on every level of your psyche, it will clear the way for this actually happening. There is something spontaneous about it (for the same reason meditation could be called a default state), and psychedelics are catalysts. So remove any obstacles - people often call this 'letting yourself go' - and it will happen when it shall.
Ultimately, we cannot judge for others what is overblown or not. To be sympathetic is to believe people on principle how deep or important they say the trip was, especially after the initial reaction. Something doesn't have to be real and tangible to change us, also we cannot witness what others have experienced, therefore we could not possibly say what did or what did not change someone.
Behavior is an indication though: if someone says they changed and became more understanding of and empathic to others, yet they keep on being the same old dick... how serious should we take that.
