I think the main disconnect here is the replcaing the argument point. You are supposed to take the best version of the argument presented, not replace it with t

I think the main disconnect here is the replcaing the argument point. You are supposed to take the best version of the argument presented, not replace it with the best possible argument. Of course anyone doing the latter is going to often be too far off course to move the conversation along. To me steelmanning is more of a better version of restating the others point in order to verify you understand their point. The best steelmanning is often proceeded by that. (do I understand the other parties meaning, and what is the strongest version of that meaning.) Most often though I just find that steelmanning is just ignoring fallacies in otherwise decent efforts at conversational debate. In order to not devolve into back and forth "thats a fallacy!".