Of course, it's all the faultt of that pesky Admissions Code, isn't it? Why don't we just go back to making individual applications to individual schools? Then each school could tell us the next morning whether we were 'in' or not, which would would work brilliantly for those of us who had trundled our DC round every selective school in the northern hemisphere (or at least, south of the Wash), we could collect up all those lovely Yeses from the ones where DC 'aced' the test and bank them for when we had made up our minds where we want to move to and then turn down all the others

.
Wouldn't it be a pain, though, if, along with the duty to give us its response by return, every school were to be given the right to demand a yes or no from us within twenty four hours, otherwise the offer is taken off the table? Just a thought.
Truly, there are many worse ways of organising things than through the coordinated admissions system.