I guess I was a much shittier debater than I thought, and I absolutely was not a good debater. I don't think I ever saw this type of thing work - maybe our schools were just in completely different skill tiers.
Also judges in different circuits are probably more tolerant of different things.
It totally depends on what the judging pool looks like. In a different state your strategy would have worked fine.
Yeah my experience was mostly limited to the national circuit and GA where the judges were typically WestGA, Emory, or UGA debaters (or debate coaches) trying to make extra money on weekends when they didn't have a college tournament