I'm not worried about overloading curators. And tutorials needs the tighter control because it is a special-purpose section that should only contain high-quality content, not just whatever people want to post that doesn't get rejected for being completely inappropriate.

Posters shouldn't have to wait for a curator to be around for their node to show up on their selected list. With node approval we at least have hundreds of "curators" there (and it is still enough of a problem that automatic approval is repeatedly proposed and I'm in favor of that with a few details worked out).

If the user fails to successfully pick a valid category, then a curator would need to place it for them, of course.

I don't like either of your alternatives for users selecting a list to add to. I'd have each list have an "add" link that gives a submission form with that list preselected.

Can these lists allow the viewer to select whether they want to see nodes under this keyword shown newest first or highest rep first? That seems important too.