very hard to answer your question, but in the attempt to give my opinion, it'll be a yes & no.
Firstly, we need to look at the purpose of the camera & the codec used to encode the video.
Cameras meant for consumer applications may offer a recording format that is highly compressed and that doesn't require high read/write throughput. (eg. AVCHD/MPEG2)
Thus, with design considerations and throughput requirements, SDHC was probably sufficient for the use and it was widely implemented in most AVCHD camcorders today.
For the entry level pro cameras like HDV, use of CF media was implemented because during it's time of development, SDHC cannot sustain the required read/write throughput to ensure a reliable recording.
As the level of compression in the video recording decreased, more bandwidth is required. When XDCAM EX format was out, Sony decided on the SxS card which supposedly offered a higher sustained read/write throughput than CF card during that time.
Panasonic DVCProHD and AVCIntra required even more bandwidth and thus panasonic developed the P2 format which was a bunch of raided SDHC card for maximum read/write throughput.
Secondly, the area which I am not qualified to comment on would be on the interface bandwidth limitations, type of memory chip used that affects the data read/write algorithm, and the technological business where certain manufacturers will tie down with developers or holder of patents to the use of the system. Eg. Panasonic uses SDHC & P2 PCMCIA interface because they were part of the developers......sony likes to be proprietary and use their MemorySticks predominantly, and had to use Expresscard34 system in XDCAM EX which they called it the SxS. They could probably have used P2 format as their recording medium so that they can record XDCAM at a higher bitrate, but it doesn't make sense coz they're competitors.
So when you ask if CF could have been better for camcorders, it's a yes and no answer depending on where you are coming from. If I needed high read/write bandwidth, yes, the 90MB/sec UDMA CF card sounds impressive, but with high read/write speeds, the card may only offer you a limited capacity which will in turn be a compromise on the recording duration.
Having said all these, the technological developments in storage media will definitely change things around...it's been a format war between manufacturers and a never-ending chase since the Umatic/VHS/Betamax days....one thing to note however is that in the quest for optimal quality in traditional SD based video, I'd say that traditional tape-based Digital Betacam lasted the longest in the industry due to it's supposedly 'uncompressed' video recording format. During that time, no other flash based or HDD based storage medium was able to sustain the read/write throughput of 10bit uncompressed SD video format.....Ikegami did developed tapeless HDD-based camera, which were real expensive and I think it didn't launch off well.