Maybe I was in the massive minority then. Though part of it was that the format let me just work on stuff "by myself" rather than sit through a bunch of explanations I didn't need.
flipped classrooms seem to imply work ahead of time though? But here we'd show up hands in our pockets and start working on the material on site
Yeah, this isn't flipped classroom (that's "students do reading before the session on the set topic, and then question the lecturer - hence flipping the direction of "control" in the session). This is active learning with small group work and peer learning - which students tend to actually quite like. (Flipped classroom works better the more engaged the students are in the topic - for electives, fine, for mandatory courses, less good.)
That's definitely not flipped classroom. In flipped classroom students read or watch videos before class, then work on problems interactively in class. The concepts are introduced in the readings and videos, not in the problems.
Depends on a group and the available tutoring time. It can go well, but not in every environment. If most of your group is not interested in the first place, you're not getting anything out of it either.