alias_sqbr

And a fine point I hadn't thought of before, you're undoubtedly right about it being a good way to coax people into coming down off that fence.

Even people who are definitely on the other side often react well to having their few valid points acknowledged. Noone likes to be told they're 100% wrong when they know they're not.

Plus, it's always good to get as many unstated assumptions stated as possible, because sometimes it turns out that the one at issue isn't that one you thought it was, or even that something you took for granted turns out on examination to be less straightforward than it seemed.

Absolutely.

I think the only time this sort of thing really backfires is when a troll tries to manipulate it, constantly bringing up divisive, complex topics or irrelevant counterexamples in order to avoid confronting the main issue.

That and you end up with tl;dr posts noone reads :)