It's very easy to agree that nuclear pulse propulsion is a bad idea for a vehicle, even among people who otherwise have very different preferences on what kind of engine they like on their vehicle.

Unfortunately, yeah, the whole debate there is unproductive. Instead of focusing on real problems, it gets stuck into an endless debate on Unix philosophy, carried among a bunch of people who aren't really sure why it's a problem if something doesn't follow it and another bunch of people who insist that they're following because saying otherwise would be bad PR.