So what if instead of giving the Congo to King Leopold, Brussels takes control of it from the get-go? Besides saving lots of people's hands, would Congo be significantly better off?
Leopold II had to go at it alone because the parliament refused to support his colonial ambitions. So without Leopold II Belgium would never got the Congo to begin with.
I fail to see how this would make a difference. King Leopold may have been a brutal ruler, but the Belgian government literally didn't do anything to help the Congo. There's only one international railroad in the entire country, and when Congo got independence there was basically no education system, very few power plants, and almost nothing needed to run a functioning government. Leopold may have started that trend, but it would have gone on just fine without him.