Even if they have to spend 8 months abroad,the guys cant perform,the few times they ever allow it it never goes anywhere while it could help them discover better the capacity of the talent they have in their hands as there is a freedom they have when the leader is not around which is why the starting act of concerts used to be popular back in the days unlike now where only the entrance and the sequences where the leader is leading 99 per cent of the songs are highlighted
maison mere performed twice without werra under ferre direction the year before ferre left and the admins went to fill werra's ears with "be careful you'll share the leadership with him make him stay in his lane by stopping it" and never happened since,in bcbg aswell they performed twice in a row without jb because jb was sick and alain mpela leading in his absence,jb had to come back from europe quick for the third despite not being at his best because staff called to spoil his ears with alain is taking another dimension with how he is leading effortlessly,koffi tried during the academia generation and on one or two occasions over a decade or more after it did not go anywhere
fally tried once in the libre parcours days and it flopped so much that he did not even consider a second and it was never really in his plans anyways to have a standard type of band,ferre once or twice when he was having his divorce but they never continued if he is not in form they just postpone
only papa wemba did that in every decade of his viva la musica career and a little bit kester

You pretty much explained reasons why it could never happen today, back in the day when Koffi was absent when QL was performing without him the banner was Sam Tshintu & Quartier Latin, and they performed as well by themselves during the attentat generation with Depitcho and Babia leading the fray.
If that happened today especially with social media they would say the group has formed a rebellious group, let’s be honest nowadays musicians leave over the tiniest smallest things so if they were to perform by themselves without the leader and it’s a success they would leave with the quickness to form their own band. 

oh yeahhh indeed,and even the internet pages to get views,i remember heritier leaving started with a post of a concert cameo at an event outside kinshasa which was presented as heritier and his band and it made his last moments tense in maison mere mere
or even those pages would say "babengani leader,groupe epanzani"if they perform without the boss one two times in a row
my main concern with that was to use this situation as an element to lament how every single group has become a shadow group there is zero group which fully behaves like the groups we grew up with