Yes, it might be easier. But for Bears of very little brain, Ovi is what they will find. Many people will never make it out beyond that, so they won't find the apps and the devs won't reach them.
Added to which, it's not 'just a website'. The whole point of the problem is that they make sure that apps are underpinned with insurance etc. If you wanted to set up a website to sell other people's apps, you'd need either watertight disclaimers or your own insurance. Indeed, we had a long discussion about how to word the warnings and disclaimers on the extras-developers page - and that was for free software!