First, the shorter OED takes albeit as a contraction "all though it be that," where '"it" holds a place in the grammar for the proposition to follow. That is, the OED agrees with Safire and Fowler in analyzing the word such that the "it" element need never change in number or, for that matter, gender.
However, not only is the inæsthetic form albethey in circulation, but the more pleasing and grammatically identical "all be they" is also current, albeit more difficult to Google efficiently.
Furthermore, these same spies have also gone a-hunting in Chaucer and come up with three verses from the Wife of Bath's Tale all ending on the same line; the first verse appears here:
The firste stok, fader of gentilesse -That "al were he" must be the equivalent of "although he were." The pronoun "he" is personal and refers back to a masculine antecedent rather than forward to some (default neuter) proposition. Likewise the Knight's Tale (l. 1851) includes the phrase "al were they."
What man that claymeth gentil for to be
Must folowe his trace, and alle his wittes dresse
Vertu to sewe, and vices for to fle.
For unto vertu longeth dignitee,
And nought the revers, savely dar I deme,
Al were he mytre, coroune, or dyademe.
All this points to the grammatical understanding that produces "all be they" and its more misshapen relatives being quite venerable, though it be an understanding that hasn't made it into the shorter OED. So to those among you who need morphology to have an ancient pedigree I say, feel free to employ these quirky forms, all be they less frequently seen in print. Chaucer has your back.
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