Scouting - Stake Troop, Patrols in Wards/Branches

For Stakes with units that have sparse numbers of YM (i.e. <5)...

I have heard rumors of Stake's maintaining "the" troop charter and individual units running patrols. The ideas being to:
1. Reduce the burden of scout organization staffing in the units
2. Improve the quality of the overall scouting organization and scouting experience
3. Improve critical mass for scouting events for units that only have 1 or 2 scouts

I'd be interested in comments on:
* Is this actually being done in North America stakes?
* If so...
-- What stakes do it and why?
-- Is a stake level troop working?
-- How does the interface to district and council work?
-- Does the stake run a scout committee and request committee member participation from the units?
-- What are areas that don't work as well? (i.e. communication, scheduling, advancement, scout camp...)

Any comments appreciated, for or against.

Although I have heard of it, it is not in keeping with instructions in the Scouting Handbook. See paragraph 8.4 for details.

I have lived in a stake that allowed a ward to register Scouts from another ward in the same city. It was done because there were not enough Scouts in one ward to register, and they did not want to implement the Lone Scout program. I have not seen a single stake troop.

The troop was registered to one of the wards, but there were leaders and troop committee members from each ward. Because all of the Scouts were in the same city, they were in the same district and council, so there was no problem there. A counselor in the stake YM presidency who happened to live in that city served as the Unit Commissioner.

There were challenges, but good leaders were called who worked through the communication and scheduling issues to provide a wonderful Scouting experience for the Young Men. And when the wards had enough youth to register separately, then did.