On the other hand, have we really gotten to the point where we have to try to provoke others into a debate? Why can't we state what we mean, what we think, what we're uncertain about, what questions we'd like to discuss in order to foster discussion instead of provoking it. Playing devil's advocate is fine when it's understood what's going on and why you're playing devil's advocate, but when there's ambiguity you play this game of "yes I said that I didn't mean it though" which ends up sounding weak as it does in those case. Devil's advocate is a great cognitive strategy for exploring an issue together, but it's a very poor conversational strategy.
No, I don't see anything that says provoking others into a debate is the only means of conversation, just one possible way of prompting a discussion. I imagine a straightforward discussion as your described is the norm, and this could be one case where they were provocative and so was selected to be leaked. But I agree with your second point that this does not appear to be such a case.
