There is inherently no privacy for a Lightning node and their HTLCs, and all public nodes learn these things in the network gossip, and the protocol requires it. There can be privacy for nodes on either end running private channels - sending side can have privacy initiating over private channels and receiving side can have privacy if - and only if - they isolate their LN node from the place from where the users receive the invoices (this is why many nodes are using Tor I believe). The path hints are only in the deepest layers of the onion and are not visible to the sender, who only sees the first hop out from their position.

In my project, the state of channels will be largely automated, and it must be possible for the sender to initiate payments, and these payments are going to be quite small most of the time so stuck payments will resolve in most cases soon enough to not be a problem.

It is not necessary for these automatically created channels to charge fees, because the payment itself includes a margin on top to compensate the relay operators. Our gateway/seed nodes will charge routing fees as our mechanism for getting a small share of the fees that will go into development/maintenance costs.

I am unfamiliar with v4v, I see many words bandied around on the interwebs and the more I see them and the less clear their meaning the more I am suspicious. I am also sus on nostr, and just this evening learned about the identity of current and past funders of the LND project, which gives me definite pause for thought.