Cassette carriers and aluminium free hubs

A belated happy new year everyone.

I am a bit of a cup and cone person. Setting bearings just aint that hard. I am, however, in the near future going to build a new wheelset and can't stop my eyes turning to the weight figures of the sealed bearing, aluminium free hub hubs. In particular the Hope Pro 2.

My reservations are that the XT cassette I usually use only has a carrier for the largest 6 gears leaving the 11, 13 and 15 to contact the free hub directly.

I'd be grateful if you good people could set me straight on the following:

Will the three small cogs damage the free hub, or is there some reason I'm not seeing that a carrier is not neccessary for them? I'd have guessed the opposite.

Is there a cassette of equal price and quality in a one piece configuration? I'd rather not spend double the price on XTR etc.

Thanks in advance.