1. The cafeteria thing could be worked out. A lot of colleges/universities have all sorts of food venues. Last time I had any influence on a campus the administration and student-union folk were talking about integrating their food services, not on the management side but on the food plan/payment side.
You'd get so much money for each meal if you had a food plan. It would get you a dining hall meal at the right time (and, possibly, at the right place). Or you could apply that amount of money to food at once of the non-res hall venues.
When the administration peeled out their overhead at market rates--which they insisted on doing--it wasn't a good deal for the students. Student union and students liked it, but admin didn't. For the duration of the COVID calamity, however, it would be workable and reduce student concentration in the dining halls. Or the two could merge to provide parallel menus, so it didn't matter where they went.
2. Testing/tracing/isolating would be difficult. If one person comes down with it in a dorm Saturday morning, it's likely s/he'd be around all sorts of people Friday night--either in the lounge, in town, just in the hallways. Or sitting next to people in Bio 101 or whatever the current required diversity class is, with an enrollment of 350. Depending on how they do instruction.
On the other hand, if the virus surges through a campus in September, by the time the kids went back for break they'd all have recovered (perhaps from something no worse than a cold) and no longer be infectious. It might open up some tenure lines for adjuncts, too.
3. Instruction would change. I suspect that the mass-enrolled classes would move online. Little point, in fact, in sitting there with teacher in front while 350 people take notes. If 2% of the class has questions, there goes 15 minutes of class time. Make them videos or readings (best choice: Both/either) and do what is usually done with large lectures: have recitation sections. (TAs teach those, and they're also low risk. Speaking as a former TA for Linguistics 101.) Seminars, specialized courses can be in person or Zoom.
4. Why have kids show up if they can do everything online? Because networking is a big deal, and it helps to have a cohort of people all reinforce to set up alternative cultures, carefully supervised, so as to make parents feel like their kid's a pod person.
No. That's not why. Young adults have typically managed before college became a thing, and were no worse off for it.
The reason is that often students interact and network, students sit in on classes to "try them out" before signing up for a professor or topic, they talk over majors and students change their minds, labs can't be done properly at home and research is difficult.
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