I ran a Raspiblitz node for a couple of years with over 100 channels and yes, it's a lot of work. My aim was never to make a lot of sats, I was happy to make enough to cover on-chain open/close fees - and this was when we could get 1sat/vbyte (good times). It was really just a learning experience plus a spending wallet. I've simplified now, running an Umbrel with 6 medium sized channels which will hopefully cover my spending needs for a long time to come. My son runs something similar but with just one channel to me. It's a reliable setup and we're putting it to the test next week travelling in El Salvador.

There's been a lot of negativity recently about Lightning and some of it is quite fair. It can be a PITA when it breaks, there's no money in it for operators unless they're running at SCALE, and the learning curve is steep. But I love it and will continue to run it as long as there's another node to share a channel with.

I do miss my old Raspiblitz though.