Can smd ferrite beads be avoided
The best PWB design , I have seen for EMI was a high speed 16 channel Mux card from Nortel.  No ferrite was used to achieve CMMR of adjacent channel signal of 60 dB SNR and 20 dB margin on CISPRE , FCC, IEC EMI  with > 100MHz spectrum.

It was an 8 layer board with balanced differential controlled impedances with tracks on opposite layers with perfect matching, between ground planes and ground tracks between channels on the signal layers.  

But then every CATV board and HDD board and commercial stepper application, I have seen uses ferrite to decouple in many areas where DC currents need low ESR , high CMRR,  low differential inductance but high lossy RF common mode impedance of a few hundred Ohms.

Low permeability ferrite is used for high power or RF, which  has more metal oxide than iron oxide. These are for >50MHz typ. and easy to tell because they are conductive.  Whereas high permeability ferrite is non conductive for ~&lt;50MHz.

Keep in mind there are thousands of ferrite blends from Token, TDK, Murata and are cheap like Borscht in volume. Some are fussy about flux and cleaning fluids.

There are least 10 general EMC methods of control.  Must read the EMC Engineering book (my bible) by Henry W. Ott. Must be in 5th publication by now.  Over 800 pages.