This seems closely related to the practice of “steelmanning”; the main difference is that when steelmanning you don’t begin with a deliberate strawman but start with what you think they actually said and then improve that. Since, as you say, “much of strawmanning is unconscious” this may be a smaller difference than it appears: when steelmanning, you are quite likely actually starting from a strawman even if you don’t intend to.
This seems closely related to the practice of “steelmanning”; the main difference is that when steelmanning you don’t begin with a deliberate strawman but start with what you think they actually said and then improve that. Since, as you say, “much of strawmanning is unconscious” this may be a smaller difference than it appears: when steelmanning, you are quite likely actually starting from a strawman even if you don’t intend to.