This was a great and informative article, but one thing it misses is that there is in fact another way to purchase a 'legitimate' peerage title (though the cost is much much higher). I recall reading about it a while back here [1]. Basically, you pay a (broke) noble family to legally adopt you. Apparently there's brokers and everything to get you connected.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-02/even-if-y...