fix: change == to .equals for Bytes.EMPTY and other non-primitive types

[kimbor]

Description:
This PR updates all object comparisons to use equals instead of == except for a few instances where reference comparisons are per design.

Related issue(s):
Fixes #16639

Notes for reviewer:
A zero-length PBJ Bytes is not necessarily Bytes.EMPTY so nothing should depend on object equality with Bytes.EMPTY. Using == for comparing objects is an anti-pattern in Java.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 40.00000% with 3 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 64.34%. Comparing base (f3ec5d1) to head (a0580f2).
Report is 8 commits behind head on main.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
...service/networkadmin/impl/WritableFreezeStore.java	0.00%	0 Missing and 2 partials ⚠️
...ontracts/hts/create/CreateSyntheticTxnFactory.java	0.00%	1 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff            @@
##               main   #17213   +/-   ##
=========================================
  Coverage     64.33%   64.34%           
- Complexity    20942    20945    +3     
=========================================
  Files          2555     2555           
  Lines         96169    96169           
  Branches      10054    10054           
=========================================
+ Hits          61873    61876    +3     
  Misses        30655    30655           
+ Partials       3641     3638    -3     

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
...om/hedera/node/app/hapi/utils/ByteStringUtils.java	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)
...com/hedera/node/app/hapi/utils/fee/FeeBuilder.java	92.56% <100.00%> (ø)
...ontracts/hts/create/CreateSyntheticTxnFactory.java	60.29% <0.00%> (ø)
...service/networkadmin/impl/WritableFreezeStore.java	86.66% <0.00%> (ø)

... and 11 files with indirect coverage changes

[codacy-production]

Coverage summary from Codacy

See diff coverage on Codacy

Coverage variation	Diff coverage
✅ +0.00% (target: -1.00%)	✅ 80.00%

Coverage variation details

	Coverable lines	Covered lines	Coverage
Common ancestor commit (f3ec5d1)	95932	65322	68.09%
Head commit (a0580f2)	95932 (+0)	65322 (+0)	68.09% (+0.00%)

Coverage variation is the difference between the coverage for the head and common ancestor commits of the pull request branch: <coverage of head commit> - <coverage of common ancestor commit>

Diff coverage details

	Coverable lines	Covered lines	Diff coverage
Pull request (#17213)	5	4	80.00%

Diff coverage is the percentage of lines that are covered by tests out of the coverable lines that the pull request added or modified: <covered lines added or modified>/<coverable lines added or modified> * 100%

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[lukelee-sl]

LGTM