Not an expert but I imagine the problem with using vision is the problem of angular error propagation. That is the angle-> distance error problem:
linear error≈Rtan(Δθ)≈RΔθ
Here linear error is the error in position, R is the distance from the observer to the target and θ is the angle error. You would need incredibly good optics and resolution to minimise angular error and thus linear error.
Yes but the errors would be uncorrelated and if you could use many different measurements you should be able to estimate with reasonable certainty.