I think I once wrote a note about how much good information and debate occurs on some topics, but like sediment, it gets buried in the volume of overays over time.
I saw that Holmes tried to summarize a thread (maybe more?), and I think this should be somehow encouraged and more structured, so that a newbie or oldie can search and find (more easily) some debate on an issue, especially for the Creation & Evolution topics (not Coffee House, and perhaps not Faith & Belief).
As for structuring this, perhaps you could gather closed-topic summaries in one bucket called Summaries of Past Debates. Offer a chance for each willing contributor to add their BRIEF key points summary.
This would be handy when a Creo throws something my way and I don't have time to dig through millions of posts.