Pension Fund Leverage

Is it only me who cringes when pension funds issue debt or create "special purpose vehicles" (I know I date myself on that last one).
With respect to SPV's, the sense is that pension funds have tremendous internal investment expertise which they can share with the rest of the world. There are 2 issues:

1. Taking your eye away from your fiduciary duty to pensioners
2. The obligation to hold the equity piece

Yes, SPV's are a thing of the past, but pension funds issuing debt? And using derivatives to leverage their hedges? The bottom line is that leverage introduces risk and if one cannot justify leverage ex-ante or especially ex-post (after something blows up) then it may not be the right approach for a pension fund.