Edit: I speak from experience, working on althea.org which included a similar system (although ours is backed by a blockchain and doesn’t require nodes to trust each other). The reality is that most nodes are either mostly paying or mostly being paid. The channels must constantly be refilled anyway because of this. We found that the saved transaction fees were not worth the complexity, and now nodes just use on chain transactions with no transitive trust system after about 50 cents of debt has built up in either direction.
