text: I wish, R&R, that it was all so easy as that.  Jesus had to only fill 12 slots (and one turned out to be His own personal tragedy, no?)  That's a simple snap of the fingers compared to what it takes nowadays (for almost the full two centuries we lay claim to).  So your "perhaps" really should be left with the original events of 30 AD.  What we are now discussing is a return to something the early Church indeed did do, and that was the selection of bishops from the local Church.  If you have a problems with it, and the involvement of the laity, go talk to Ignatius of Antioch (in 110 AD) and others like Cyprian of Carthage, or, jumping forward a bit to the early third century, the document from (probably) Hippolytus of Rome, "Apostolic Tradition," which states that a new bishop was to be chosen by all the people.  It has great meaning for a Church that has grown to immense size and a dysfunctional centralization of power, largely disconnected to the faithful of the local church.