In the context of the article here, the tactics are used to derail the agreed proposition - not to contribute to understanding the values or otherwise of it, which is the purpose of any good faith approach.
If the resolution is about reducing worldwide pollution, and I put forth a counterplan that essentially says "No way. We should take all that funding you want to use for your plan and use it to support animal welfare instead," is that not "derail[ing] the agreed proposition" in your terms? Yet, again, this is a classical and accepted tactic.
I haven't participated in this kind of program, but it seems extremely bad faith to basically expect the opponent to argue that their position is necessary condition to something nothing short of absolute utopia.
As a college admissions officer or employer, if this is what the endeavor had degenerated to, I would place no stock in it as a skill builder or source of any reputable credential.
In what way? Like it or not, we exist in a world of finite resources. It's wholly appropriate to argue that "No, we should not use our limited resources on X when there is the problem Y out there that we could apply them to instead, and derive a much larger comparative advantage from." These are the types of questions faced in the real world by decision makers every day. If anything, your position is the utopian one.
So, you can't counterargue a lay perception? That speaks for itself.
Better yet: "this is atypical in-group power play: the misuse of authority in the absence of substance is de facto perpetuation of the institutional dysfunction laid clear by outsiders."
The distinction between derailing and "understanding the values and otherwise" is contestable and in fact routinely contested by debaters - and there is of course no de jure or de facto rule that the person who goes further in trying to critique assumptions and structures wins.
The style of "critique is inherently bad" argument made by this article is also perfectly possible to make within debate. But it's not common, less because of biased judges (who certainly exist, in all directions) than because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny very well in context. Policy debate isn't a great truth-finding endeavor, but it is ruthlessly competitive and as a result pretty effective at weeding out arguments that, like the article's, rely on a low-context audience who have heard a lot about out of control woke college students but haven't just watched a bunch of rounds of vigorous dispute over everything from hypothetical policy details to the boundaries of the year's topic to, yes, critical theory, with practiced advocates on every side.