I don't think you can even contend that real discussion isn't going on in this thread as we speak.

Red: Your conversation with BenDover sparked an idea which I don't know is able to be implemented but I sure as hell know it would be useful to help the workload of said mod who would ever be asked nicely to look over a debate thread. How about giving the debate tag more authority? Or even better, much like topics had to be approved once submitted in the debate thread, we could do the same with any thread labelled and tagged "Debate". That tag should indicate a level of formality that was held as a standard in the old debate board.