I’m not sure I understand why you think any given counter-argument would not be susceptible to employing same sorts of bias-inducing mechanisms (elegant rhetoric, etc.) as the argument it sets out to counter.
As long as there are some actual arguments in the critiques and counter-critiques, you will gain a better appreciation of the strength of the initial argument, even if there is a lot of rhetoric.
I’m not sure I understand why you think any given counter-argument would not be susceptible to employing same sorts of bias-inducing mechanisms (elegant rhetoric, etc.) as the argument it sets out to counter.
As long as there are some actual arguments in the critiques and counter-critiques, you will gain a better appreciation of the strength of the initial argument, even if there is a lot of rhetoric.