I mean, even if just installing a different OS were an option, you'd need to install and setup that OS on a few hundred computers or more. I used to work for a place that would essentially do the enterprise enrollment in bulk before shipping off the computers to schools. I could only setup a bit under 100 over an 8 hour workday, assuming no major issues (like captchas on the login step, or the wifi going out). Keep in mind that we also had specialized little microcontroller* USBs specifically for doing all the enrollment keypresses, and enough of those for someone to setup multiple computers at once.
I am actually curious as to how you would make a locked down managed linux OS akin to ChromeOS. Maybe there would be a way to do something like that that's also faster to setup, but idk.
*centipedes are the name for the ones we used.
Yes it should exist, or at least it should exist in some form as long as we exist in a capitalist economic system. Without it, if you invest your time and money into a novel new creative work, it becomes possible for a third party to undercut you by just republishing your work at a lower price, since they don't need to earn back the cost of creating that novel new thing.
Current state of copyright is overkill though, and mostly just benefits massive companies. Personally I think the length of protections should be 50 years max (at least I could see that being passed as legislation in the near future), and ideally something like 20-30 years, which should be more than enough time to get nearly all of the potential profits for your creation, while allowing people to start adapting that creation within their lifetimes.