Or maybe you're just not very familiar with the state of the art? Token curated registries and Schelling-voting prediction markets can be and are being used as oracles effectively. Oracles are being used all over the place with many different architectures - some centralized, some decentralized. People are iterating on solutions as we speak, and many of them are operational and functioning smoothly as we speak.

When I say these things are 'being worked on', I don't mean they are abstract, purely theoretical ideas being discussed on github threads and dueling whitepapers. Many of them actually exist and are being used to safeguard funds and enforce contracts right now. I say it's being worked on because I don't think we have achieved the final vision of exactly the best ways of doing these things yet, it's an evolving process. Do not mistake that for a lack of progress.