Peer review prior to beginning a study?
Yes, some 225 journals do operate under such a model, called Registered Reports. As you suggest, the approach has a lot of advantages. The tagline is:


  Registered Reports: Peer review before results are known to align scientific values and practices.


Clearly, this is not yet a majority view, but as a methodology it is in the ascendant. The umbrella term is preregistration.