Why should these TLDs be exclusive for certain people, even more so if they're going to be managed by some kind of global entity?
You see no other existing options because the premise is to raise the cost significantly and make it unavailable for most people. It clearly doens't have to be that way. And you don't solve anything by funneling that money into an extremely inefficient organization.
Keep the current system, as it seems to be working well. There are other ways to stop domain squatters, like not letting them abuse the registrar status to hold domains without paying for them.
You see no other existing options because the premise is to raise the cost significantly and make it unavailable for most people. It clearly doens't have to be that way. And you don't solve anything by funneling that money into an extremely inefficient organization.