Let me try to answer your main concern by way of an analogy.

Suppose a little old woman opened up a street business where she will give you a quick massage. For $5, you can sit in her chair for up to five minutes and she will massage you and talk soothingly to you in a grandmotherly way. Her business is quite successful, and people love to sit in her chair, but she notices something: people rarely stay for the full 5 minutes. They typically only stay for 1 minute. Considering this, she drops her price, but keeps the sign the same otherwise: for $1, you may sit in her chair for up to 5 minutes and be pampered.

In this situation, I think it would be silly if she got mad at someone who occupied the whole 5 minutes, or close to it. The little old woman is under no obligation to offer the cheaper rate or expect every sitter to only sit for 1 minute. As long as her sign says you may sit 5 minutes for $1, any sitter should feel perfectly at ease sitting 5 minutes for $1. If the little old woman doesn't like it, she can raise her fee or lower the time limit. The silliest thing she can do is scream at customers to stop staying for 5 minutes when her own sign says they may, or tell them they are ruining her business, or making her mad. The sitters are only accepting the terms she advertises, over which she has complete control.

To me, it's the exact same with hodl invoices and lightning. If, for some reason, a node operator doesn't like the rates my users pay to use an htlc slot for something slightly closer to its maximum length than is typical, they have two options: reduce the time limit, or raise the rates. If they don't do that they have no one to blame but themselves. All my users are doing is paying the advertised rate for the advertised time limit. I don't think it's wise to blame them or me. If you're a node operator, and you don't like what my users are paying, change your sign. Be the change you want to see in the world -- don't harp on my users to stop using your node in the way you are publicly advertising they may use it.