The only project that I know of that uses payment channels is streamium. But anyone could build a live streaming site like streamium without payment channels and it would work just as well as streamium. A future version of Autotip will have a Video API (much like the current Audio API) so you can monetize videos, much like how streamium monetizes live video.
Not really. Payment channels give unique advantages that cannot be replicated without leveraging the multi-sig and nlocktime features of the bitcoin protocol. Your whole spiel here reeks of pushing an external agenda on a thread that has nothing to do with the discussion you provided. It is not welcome.