I used to watch Ralph Nader do this. He was a master of the technique in the days of his book, "Unsafe At Any Speed." The technique, as I studied it, involved this:
1. Use your first 3 minutes to speak very rapidly, with much emotion, and shoot out about 10 lies, rapid fire.Ralph would usually have the audience packed with idiot-students who were his admirers, and they would wildly applaud each "point" he made. To an un-informed member of the audience, it appeared that Ralph was a clear winner.
2. Let your opponent, who has evidence and reason on his side (a Ken Star kind of guy), use his 3 minutes to carefully refute a couple of lies.
3. When it's your turn again, spew out 10 more lies.
4. Repeat (using 10 new lies each round) until the "debate" ends.
5. Result: no time to rebut very much, and most of Ralph's lies would go unchallenged.
VadeRetro is correct, that a "debate" is not the forum to handle such a fraud. It must be done in writing, point for point, so that each lie can be clearly dealt with.
Although Creationists complain bitterly that mainstream Scientific Journals won't publish Creation Science papers, one has to wonder whether they don't secretly see it as a blessing in disguise. By self-publishing their "scientific research," they effectively shield their audience from the very point-by-point analysis and rebuttal to which all science is subjected in mainstream science journals. In short, Creation Science avoids science journals for the same reasons Vade and you have suggested Creationism hucksters prefer live "debate" formats over the rigors of a written format like FR.
Perhaps this also explains why circus and magic acts thrive in live performance formats, but don't translate well to video tape, where the suspicious viewer can stop the tape, back up, and run it in slow motion.
In a word, too much "scrutiny" ruins the effect.