To do that well, one is not engaging in vague theological musings; one is carrying out hard literary and historical analysis to get at sublime theological truths. One is also recognizing how God revealed His Will to human beings living at a particular time and place, by means of inspiring human authors to write a story well in order to clarify more carefully the faith of Ancient Israel vis-a-vis other cultures.
Compared to that sort of insight, what is the value of arguing about the presence of dinosaurs on the Ark?
You just shot your own foot off with that sentence. Find for me one person that insists on two of every species. I'll be waiting.
and then coming to realize the theological message of the Genesis flood story, as a deliberate polemic
BTW, what are your scholarly qualifications that allow you to make such a claim? You can't have any background related to ancient lit or the Bible since the 19th century hypothesis that the Genesis story was borrowed has been thoroughly debunked. IOW, if you were up on the scholarship in this area, you wouldn't have made such a claim.