The idea of having wealthy and influential people pay for religious institutions out of their own funds was common in the Greek world as well -- when you accepted a one-year stint as a priest of this or that deity, you were committing to pay for the various costs yourself.

I don't think there's anything wrong with communities that want some approximation of a church structure, with a physical location and all, providing one. That's why I specified the Neopagan scene -- I don't consider Heathenry to belong to that movement, any more than us Mesopagan (thank you, Isaac Bonewits) Druids do. It was specifically the Neopagan scene that was supplied with people who wanted to be paid clergy, without checking first to see if anyone wanted to do the paying.