I think you've nailed why I've always felt slightly uncomfortable with "steelmanning" and I vastly prefer the alternative mentioned in the above rebuttal, "bene

I think you've nailed why I've always felt slightly uncomfortable with "steelmanning" and I vastly prefer the alternative mentioned in the above rebuttal, "benefit of the doubt". So often "steelmanning" is indeed just another form of strawman, because at some level it's usually easy to misunderstand the perspective from which someone else is arguing (often the whole reason for getting into a heated debate in the first place). Giving someone the benefit of the doubt doesn't require any (possibly false) projection of having mutual understanding, but simply an attitude that "I may not understand it, but your argument is probably just as valid as mine". IMHO the real way to oppose the strawman fallacy or any other is simply to argue coherently in good faith, not to adopt a new potential fallacy on principle.