Regarding num channels manageable: Depends on the hardware/bandwidth your node has. Also, any custom scripts/tooling to manage channels automatically "in bulk" without becoming overwhelming to manually maintain.
These days I run every node in as a VM in Proxmox. Since the machine is virtualized, I can do live migrations. It means I can transfer the Node VM to another server over the internet while its running. Even the memory is migrated without any downtime.
Regarding num channels manageable:
Depends on the hardware/bandwidth your node has. Also, any custom scripts/tooling to manage channels automatically "in bulk" without becoming overwhelming to manually maintain.
Quality is always better than quantity, IMO.
Regarding uptime:
https://nullcount.com/how-to-migrate-an-umbrel-lnd-node-without-closing-channels/
These days I run every node in as a VM in Proxmox. Since the machine is virtualized, I can do live migrations. It means I can transfer the Node VM to another server over the internet while its running. Even the memory is migrated without any downtime.
https://nullcount.com/how-to-install-umbrel-in-a-proxmox-virtual-machine/