Osmosis has been my only way to get CRO so that jives with your route from the Crypto.org angle. The ATOM/OSMO LP pool has been very stable at about 95-105% lately. It was much higher before, but has been holding in this zone for a while. Osmosis is a great place to start learning about as a channel hub across many blockchains.

You're right about fees but the fees are so tiny. Free doesn't always mean better, and maybe Hive devs can be flexible to adapt.