Yeh I don't think it's the sort of thing that one university offers over another, and there isn't really any barriers to you being the first in an institution to do it. It's your PhD so you can pretty much decide how you do it. At my university there is a real mix of people doing it in each way within and between diciplines.
But from my point of view what you write in publications and your thesis are different things. I've written several publications and I am writing my PhD as a thesis. A thesis will really let you go into detail about every aspect of your research and nit pick on certain points you will be building a mass of specialising knowledge and thinking very clearly and carefully about every aspect of what you are doing - an opportunity you'll probably never have again in your career so I'm glad I'm writing it that way. Publications are influenced by word limits, and will generally want a clear, consise and less detailed exposition of a study that do not let you indulge in as much information, Although it's becoming quite common to to do PhD by publication in my department my supervisors are quite keen to hold onto the thesis.
Good luck :-)