I am sure your trainer has never mentioned this.Most hide behind equitable interest theory which is great but when its a scheme its selling RE without a license plain and simple.when your buying for your own account that's fine.. you close you own you do with them what you want.And I get it on hoarder houses I bought 5 in the last year that were not saleable accept for cash I am not even sure a HML would loan on them LOL.. so folks are kind of stuck I get that.but like your said lots of bad actors in this realm.

Investing" implies passivity.

I totally can see how someone rather wholesale rather than own property.Lastly there is a big difference between giving an opinion... and assuming wholesaling is crap ( as if it being a fact) and then be baffled why anyone would choose wholesaling "when they already are successful investing", therefore implying, wholesaling = not successful investor".Hence my example of getting married.

They are negotiating against the seller, but doing it in a way that implies they are working together.No wholesaler would stay in business if they paid sellers MLS prices.

I am assuming you are a wholesaler (correct me if I am wrong), if so I would just tell the seller you are interested in buying and not mention the how you will buy.Its very important as a wholesaler that you always represent yourself buying the property and no one else because it could be implied that you are representing someone else and those are dangerous waters because you are now borderline practicing as a real estate agent/realtor and you need to be licensed to do that. 

I also wasn't implying asset protection, however its a lot harder to sue someones SD IRA than it is their LLC or savings account.