They are using BGP and routing nodes (backbones), recreating a mini IP (layer 3) network I think.
I've used raw wireguard in a p2p fashion to interconnect LANs. I run wireguard on each segment directly inside the network routers.
Just make sure all LANs are using a different subnet. A /24 is standard. Then configure all the peers and you get a fully peer to peer network. No relays. You only need one side of every peer "pair" to be reachable from the internet.
I do have a small management script to help peer discovery (dynamic IPs) and key exchange, but it's not strictly required. With a dozen nodes or so, it's maintainable manually. Wireguard supports roaming natively, as long as one peer can reach the other.
I have my own Wireguard mesh network between my home network and a couple of VPSes. I configured it all manually, too. I'm basically running a virtual public network and have it routing a /24 (BGP announced at the VPSes) back to my home.
A little morbid, but have you considered setting up a beneficiary for the allocation or detailing this asset in a will? That's some special, virtual real estate you have there.
That is correct. IPSec sucks but we have already paid the price of being forced to figure it out in big organizations, so, not much motivation to figure out another thing.
The only use case I can imagine is a legacy game which performs a server search by broadcasting/scanning the local network. And even then - most of the time these games had server browsers.