[ecdavis]

What you're arguing for are more accessible immigrant visas ("green cards").

AFAIK there is nothing currently stopping a US company from hiring a person, sponsoring them for an immigrant visa, and then waiting for that immigrant visa to be issued before the person relocates to the US. The main issue with this approach is that it takes many years for immigrant visas to be issued and companies want people to relocate right away. If an individual could use a current I-140 to get an infinitely-renewable non-immigrant visa I feel like that would resolve most complaints that we see about the H-1B here on HN.

If the H-1B visa was changed like you describe above I think it would leave a gap in available US non-immigrant visas. I think that gap would end up being filled by a new type of non-immigrant visa functionally very similar to the current H-1B. The H-1B visa serves an important purpose[0] which has been wildly distorted by tech companies using them for permanent employees on the pathway to permanent residency.

[0] Its intention was to provide US firms unable to find specialist workers locally with a means to fill vacancies with temporary workers.