There are still ways to release things anonymously. You can't make it impossible to track but you can make it very difficult. Sometimes when a dodgy site is shuttered it takes political pressure from the government on a foreign power to make it happen. Since NCSoft or whoever owns the IP is unlikely to have much clout on countries who court anonymous internet activity.
Charging is a no-no, but the way Space and Beyond handles it is that they accept donations to cover server cost, but not one penny more. But in that case they are allowed by EA to proceed (I was astonished when I learned the EA was willing to work with it's defunct MMO communities. Credit where it is due. Still don't like Origin tho) so the same rational might not apply.
But all this is academic at this point.
I do have to say that IF i ran a private server, I would run it for my buds and I to play on and I would make it generic Out of the Box. I'm not a dev, I don't wanna be. The idea of balancing powersets and all that stuff gives me the heebie jeebies.
Also, even if I had a one, I would shutter it the moment that COH made a triumphant return. To me, CoT and Private Servers are all I might be able to get until COH returns (Unlikely, but: "a man's reach should exceed his grasp -- or what's a heaven for?")