My final year project was a 120 page report of measurements of electron spin resonance together with the design of the experimental apparatus. I had to defend the design, conclusions (which I have long forgotten, it was in 1977), and justify the methods and calculation all orally to two academics.

I doubt that anyone could have produced a plausible report without actually doing the work. And to defend it one would have to understand the underlying physics and the work that was done. Plus I think my supervisor and the other two students who worked with me on the project would have remarked on my absence from the laboratory if I had simply bought the paper!

You can still have long term projects and dissertations so long as the degree is awarded for the defence of the dissertation rather than the dissertation itself; that is the student must demonstrate in a viva that they understand everything in the dissertation rather than merely regurgitate it.