It's definetly possible, but then you have the 8 textures per surface limit on most cards. 4 on some older hardware.
Plus your going to need some HUGE textures, with the actual texture tiled on the texture. Because the texture will have to stretch across the entire terrain, with the parts marked black for where you don't want that texture to affect the terrain.
That's why the vertex alpha is so handy. You can use smallish textures and get the vertex alpha to fade out the bits you don't want textured with that texture.
Plus your going to need some HUGE textures, with the actual texture tiled on the texture. Because the texture will have to stretch across the entire terrain, with the parts marked black for where you don't want that texture to affect the terrain.
That's why the vertex alpha is so handy. You can use smallish textures and get the vertex alpha to fade out the bits you don't want textured with that texture.