MIMO with geographically distributed repeaters

Assume a 2x2 MIMO receive only system (as in broadcast). Can there be simple analog repeaters (2x2 antennas) in the same frequency that are far away from the main transmitter? Since MIMO works best with multipath signals, do the repeaters act as an extra path to the receiver?

Can the above system work?

MIMO performance work with multipath since the multipath creates variety (i.e. variance in statistical term). These variation create channel capacity. Adding static object such as repeaters will not improve capacity with number of antenna but it will increase the capacity if you configure the repeaters so that the SNR increase...

MIMO-> increases capacity due to variety in the multipath creates parallel channel
Repeater-> in creases the capacity by improve the SNR....

So the above scenario shouldn't cause any interference as it operates in same frequency, right?

The reason to use a repeater is to improve indoor reception by increasing the signal strength. I am not sure if a complete demodulate-decode-encode-modulate chain be used as it will introduce significant delay into the repeater/retransmitter signals and may fall outside of guard intervals.

Also I've one more doubt regarding MIMO receiver, Why can't I use a single receive antenna, pass it through a simulated(digital) rayleigh fading channel to emulate more than one receive antenna?