The goal is to impress lurkers with their "cleverness," not to win over their "opponents" with a reasoned defense.
No, my friend, I think the goal is to win over lurkers with a clear presentation of the Truth and show the faults of the arguments of the disingenuous. When your 'opponents' demonstrate that they have closed their respective minds years ago, it makes little sense to expect them to react to reason.
Amazingly, some of your co-religionists have hurled some of their most incongruous epithets (i.e. 'fatal heretic') because I announced I would -- get ready -- read a book. Now, for people of that genre, to expect them to say, 'you know, I've never thought of it that way before' is naive.