Brings back memories. I debated for 9 years. 4 in high school in LD winning league a couple of times and qualifying for nationals and state. I also competed on the national circuit for college policy debate. And I finished by doing a year of debate in British Parliamentary. I was usually a "traditional" debater, ie. one who spreads. I think the problem with debate is that there are actually no rules beyond speaker order and speaker time. There's been a devolution of debate to "performance", ie, the speech itself and its medium is a form of argument. RAP, music, dancing, etc. During my last tournament, I actually counted the times I debated the topic versus the rules of debate and found that it was about equal. If anything, debate doesn't have enough rules that govern it.