I agree with you (I've told my family I want to be cremated), BUT...
...there was a good reason for the modern re-invention of enbalming.
During the US Civil War, there were no refrigerated train cars. The bodies of soldiers killed in battle, or who died from illness, would putrefy beyond the point when their families could hold a traditional funeral for them.
So many entrepreneurs went into the mortician business and headed for the battlefields.
This "service" is usually not needed anymore, but our culture has never looked back (with the exception of small groups like Orthodox Jews who have kept their tradition of next-day burials and prohibition against enbalming).
It was talking to someone involved with an Orthodox Jewish funeral home that I realized this wasn’t needed.
They refrigerate the bodies. Embalming is not needed at all even for a burial. I also found out that our state DOES NOT require embalming, but funeral directors won’t tell you that.
Embaling is a $500+ charge for nothing. If you are going to bury the body within just a few days, all you need to do is find a mortuary that will refrigerate the body. Many funeral homes that are Orthodox Jewish will host non-Jewish funerals also.