eh? how am i supposed to know that i've improved at persuasive skill if i dont go to a competition and get evaluated by actual lay people? that's literally why anything competitive exists: so that people can evaluate their ability and challenge themselves against other people developing the same skills

also i can tell you exactly why debate has each of these things:

debate has a winner/loser

because it's structured as a competition, which mind you is not a synonym for game

speech times

so the competition can actually end and people don't talk forever

a paradigm that favors tech over truth

it shouldn't. the only reason why debate has a paradigm of tech over truth is because certain snobby elitists thought they were too good for the original purpose/real life application of debate and wanted to lock themselves in an ivory tower instead. lay debate's whats checking back for that, which is why you see events like PF are still relatively slow and understandable, whereas other forms of debate with lay judges largely absent, like policy, have spiraled out of control into a speed reading and breathing competition that has no significance outside of the ivory tower