Ok, a potential positive sum is definitely better than zero but once again, how exactly are creditors making money off this? The grandparent's post is implying that somehow no one is losing money in this situation. I'd like to hear how it works.

So you're saying that the original creditors made money off this and new creditors through secondary market transactions are left holding the bag? That's partially true but a massive portion of this debt is in pension funds or passive investments that track index funds. They track benchmark indices so they're buying these bonds at issue or shortly after. With no active management involved, they are also losing money when a company files.