I'm broadly in favor of RFCs but they need to be dictated from top-down. That's easier said than done.

Most RFC committee debates ime devolve into firing squads in which the presenter needs to answer every question with pin-point accuracy and perfect context from the asker. Otherwise, they look unprepared and the RFC is negated.

This is allowed to happen because everybody is a theoretical co-equal in the process. Thus, everybody wants to have their say. You'd hope people would read ahead of time but there's always somebody who doesn't yet feels entitled to ask pre-emptive questions. It makes for very combative discussions.

The exception is when a double-skip manager stops that from happening and lets the presenter "make their case" and walk through the whole RFC.