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I think your position on RAI having no basis in an intelligent rules debate is far to simplistic of an answer.

Rules can be ambigious leading to no clear answer being available from a strict RAW interpretation.

ie SW Wolf Scouts having the "scout" rule.

In cases were RAW is ambigious and lacking clear definition, reasonable intent can sometimes be induced in explaining an RAI arguement.

Again, it can be reasonably induced that the "scout" rule mentioned in the SW codex for SW Scouts referes to the"Scouts" USR in the BRB.

What I have been increasingly seeing in YMDC is a preponderance of situations where the RAW is unclear or meaningless. This almost always leads to both sides claiming that they have a RAW arguement, when both sides are rather inducing from intent or interpretation (in otherwards, a RAI arguement). I believe this is largely because the current YMDC elites have made a misinformed decision that RAI has no place in discussing legal arguements, something that would be laughable in any other area of law. Therefore, to make thier stance sound more official, they incorrectly label it as a RAW stance...which again, can often be impossible because the strict RAW has no clear meaning or no-meaning at all.

I think that a more informed discussion would reconize that there are both good and bad RAI arguements, just as thier are both good and bad RAW arguements. And that at times, a RAI arguement will be superior to a RAW arguement.

Moreover, I think alot of headway would be made by acknowledging that RAW arguements only work when the rule are written clearly and concisely. By acknowledging cases where RAW arguements cannot be used we can then focus instead on best intent, which would be much more constructive.