"...this can also be a bad thing, in that the bar to entry in theory is quite low, meaning you might have to deal with people arguing in questionably bad faith, or who don’t have first hand real world experience of the subject."

FWIW, this isn't something that can only happen in the IETF. Lots of other SDOs can have this issue. Some (usually corporate sponsored) participants in SDOs participate solely to slow down/poison work. Usually as an effort to gain market share while things are debated and become the de facto standard rather than allow something they may not implement become standardized.