Few people know this, but BIP 39 was actually Nack'ed by the code reviewers. In the Bitcoin core repo, to Ack is to agree with the proposal. It means you reviewed it and gave a thumbs up, this is good code. In BIP 39's case, it got a Nack from reviewers which means they reviewed the code and gave it a thumbs down, this is bad code.
BIP 39 is where we get seed phrases from. So why was it negatively reviewed? Let me put it this way, do you know what a derivation path is? If you answered no, then you have the answer to your question.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/wiki/Comments:BIP-0039
Now, getting a Nack in your BIP doesn't mean its dead forever and ever. You can update your BIP to address the concerns and change that Nacks over to Acks. However, wallet developers implemented the BIP before any improvements to the BIP were made. That means that things like the derivation path can be wildly different between wallets.
You can check which derivation path your wallet uses here: https://walletsrecovery.org (this is literally just a list of derivation paths)
What makes this worse is that things like timelocks can not be represented using BIP 39 because it uses a locking script and that script needs to be part of your backup. That's why something like Liana wallet uses a different backup method called "descriptor wallets"
This is the BIP for descriptor wallets https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0380.mediawiki
So look out for this new wallet recovery type. Maybe even you can think of ways to make it easy to use for the general community and it may as a result even take over seed phrases.
That's not a good reason to pretend they are something else. You don't get to make up new definitions just because you don't like the legal consequences of the correct definition.
Then it's "enhanced" custody...but still custody. Imagine if every custodian who added some new feature declared that they weren't a custodian anymore because "traditional custodians don't have feature X!" It would be ridiculous. If you still have user funds, you're a custodian, and just because ecash mints have some cool features does not make them non-custodial.
While I'm here I'd like to comment on a few sentences from your opening post:
I think it's just the first part, before the word "and." Being custodial has nothing to do with how they represent their relationship to you in their database. For example, the website acceptln.com is a custodial website that does not have accounts. Instead, you "deposit" sats without logging in and it automatically emails a "voucher" for that deposit to whoever you want it to go to. They email that person a link where they can claim the sats. Here, the depositor never has an account, but it's still obviously custodial -- acceptln has the money. What makes you a custodian is whether you have the keys, not whether you give your depositors an account or not.
That does not matter. The mint holds user deposits and redeems them when bearer tokens are submitted to them. I like the analogy of a money order. If I go to my local walmart I can purchase a money order from them which is essentially a check drawn on walmart's account. I need no account of any kind to do this. I can then mail this money order to anyone and if they go to their own local walmart, or walmart's bank, they can redeem it, because it's walmart's check. Ecash tokens are a lot like that. But it's clearly custodial. I give my money to w̶a̶l̶m̶a̶r̶t̶ the mint, they keep it but give me an IOU for the same amount (minus a fee), I can give that to anyone I want, and they can redeem it without an account. But since w̶a̶l̶m̶a̶r̶t̶ the mint has my deposit the whole time, w̶a̶l̶m̶a̶r̶t̶ the mint is the custodian.
Not if the mint doesn't want you to. The problem is the melt/swap operation. If you send someone your IOU and the recipient doesn't swap or melt it at the mint, the IOU is double spendable -- you can give it to someone else or redeem it yourself. The recipient hasn't really "received" anything of value if it's still fully spendable by whoever they got it from. Therefore, ecash recipients have to swap or melt their tokens in order to safely consider them "received." And that means the whole system is permissioned, because the mint is under no obligation to issue IOUs for anyone and they are under no obligation to redeem them for anyone. They can refuse, or do shotgun KYC, or suddenly raise their fees, or do whatever they want, at any step of the process. They can suddenly start doing this at the time of issuance or at the time of redemption or anywhere in between. They hold the money so it is in fact a permissioned system. Which is just another indicator that it really is a custodial relationship, regardless of whether users have accounts or not.
Nice review!!
Do they offer pick up orders?
Just a hunch, but food may be an important factor regarding the male/female ratio. Maybe offer aditional dishes? Drinks are great, but food is the soft spot for most people.