I guess what I don't get is how even LD debates were able to be compromised by technicality, "spreading" and increasing velocity. As other commenters mentioned,

I guess what I don't get is how even LD debates were able to be compromised by technicality, "spreading" and increasing velocity. As other commenters mentioned, spreading can be judged on a know it when you see it basis. Velocity could be similarly judged, or stopped with an explicit limit on rate of speech. Technicality is more difficult but probably becomes less of a problem if the other two are sorted out. It sounds like the real failure is the failure to meaningfully regulate the offending behaviors. Maybe there is difficulty regulating it, but the "gee, we'll never be able to fix it regardless of how we regulate" is more likely an attitude of lethargic helplessness rather than a meditation on the nature of competitive debate itself.