believe it or not a lot of people are interested in the technology itself and want to get involved with it as soon as possible so they start running a Lightning node and have fun with it. you don't have to do it with a very large amount of bitcoin. you can put a smaller amount in and test things. and you may even earn some satoshis as the fees!
Also arduous testing is exactly what those glorious bastards are doing. It's voluntary testing like this that is needed to ensure that Lightning Network gets polished quickly and reaches a stable state sooner rather than later.