On a more discussion-based note, I have had some of the same worries as you when doing edits - am I doing to much? Am I myopically editing it with CS in mind? Feedback I have gotten is - if something is marked as private IRL, and you change OSM to reflect that, you are OK, even if it looks like more than a driveway. Or if you mark a road that isn’t meant for pedestrians (even though it might not technically be illegal it is in reality not a street you should be walking on.
When James executed the changeover to OSM data, he had to reprocess every. single. account. it took weeks. There is till the odd account holder coming back after being gone for a while and saying “how come I don’t have any completed streets before September?” that was missed in the reprocessing. Hopefully James, with our help if/when he requests it, can come up with a solution that keeps everyone up-to-date with rolling or periodic updates.
The global update to OSM was done in September, so any private or foot=no streets you are seeing with nodes may have been updated since then, as the OSM data (a least for any cities that weren’t added since September) is from then and not yet updated.