Stage 1 supplies voltage gain. Stage 2 is an emitter follower: its voltage gain is near unity but its input resistance is much larger than a 2 kOhm load, so it prevents that load from directly shunting RC1.
Compare gain at C1 and OUT, then remove Q2 conceptually and calculate what a 2 kOhm collector load would do to stage-1 gain. Buffering is an impedance transformation function, not a voltage-gain function.
