The only fly in the ointment I see WRT your proposed annual convention of the states, or any other regularly occurring periodic convention, is that such a convention would probably itself require a constitutional amendment to bring it into constitutional effect, because it would be a major institutional or systematic change that goes straight to the constitutional distribution of powers as between the national government and the States and the people thereof.
Though certainly I am completely in favor of "a nationwide debate on the nature of government, freedom, and so many other fundamentals that the Left so easily gaffs off today," I just don't see how such a thing can be "forced" under our constitutional system of government.
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Article V....
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution,
or,
on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes,
as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof,
as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article;
and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
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Not at all. The convention does not have to adjourn sine die. There is nothing to prevent it from adjourning for instance to a particular date the following year.
By this, a convention of the states could be a much needed standing institution.