but have a feeling the funds are lost to the blockchain forever.
Why don't you try to close the channel unilaterally if you are the other user too? I believe your other wallet is good enough to close the channel, which will get back your funds?
Maybe there is a command in LND to expose the private key, since I have the seed words, seed password, and wallet password?
I don't think so there exists something like that. But you can try "listfunds" to check the funds present in your wallet.
I have not opened channels back to the nodes I had before. But weirdly, they show up as 'peers' and not channels.
I don't get your point in this.
see if I can open channels back with the nodes. Since channel state is lost, I doubt it's recoverable. But thought I would access the knowledge of those smarter than me.
No one is smarter than anyone. It is just the implementation of one's gained knowledge at the right place and at the right time.
Unless you don't have access to the "lightningd.sqlite3" file I think it would not be possible to open the same channel as those state of the channel is unrecoverable. Both these files are equally important as seed and a password in the normal onchain node.
Lightning Network is new to everyone. We need to try things out like these with minimal btc and learn.