Theoretical objections of the sort "this could have been done some other way" are always rather strange, because they tend to ignore the actual fact that it has not been done some other way.

Yes, that would be possible. However, it is difficult to get multiple parties to cooperate and coordinate on an expensive for a long time. It requires a high degree of trust, or some form of legal instrument. Trust isn't very much around these days, maybe some clever legal instrument could have done it?