I think it's less strange if you consider the conversion formula to be:
lo broda brode ~= lo brode pe lo broda
Now you can plug in any broda you want, one possible candidate being
{.tato'ebas.}, so that {lo jufra pe *lo* .tato'ebas.}. That way
there is no difference between a cmevla- and a brivla-seltau. There
only seems to be one because cmevla are always names, so you don't
need the extra step of adding {me la} (because this is already part
of the cmevla's definition).
That breaks too many things, i.e., all tanru, because it would force {lo
crino mlatu} to be {lo mlatu pe lo crino}, and any current usage would
have to changed to {lo ke crino mlatu} or {lo crino bo mlatu} to
override it.