I manage over 1000 apple devices at a local college for 14+ years and we have never had a activation lock issue. 90% of devices owned by businesses and education people setup their devices in a MDM, even apple used to provide a free mdm for apple server people. The mdm has features to bypass activation lock if the device was setup as a managed device in a MDM and using apple business manager or apple school manager. For the devices that are older and were not setup on a MDM, if you purchased the device directly from apple there is a form you fill out to get the device unlocked but you have to show proof of purchase and a receipt etc. Its on you if you bought a second hand apple product not to verify its unlocked before you purchased it. Also you dont need the person who originally owned and logged into icloud to come physically unlock the device. They can log into icloud.com and remove the device from find my and the activation lock will be removed. Just need to factory reset the device and when it checks back into apple servers on setup the activation lock will be removed. You know how much a bigger target apple users would be for theft if activation lock could just be willy nilly removed.