It's not debasement. Debasement is issuing more coins, making existing coins worth less. The proposed bug fix is essentially a reverse stock split where every two old coins are exchanged for one new coin.

The extra coins being combined into one coin are coins you should not have received under the "close to Bitcoin's original curve" schedule that was advertised. To argue that bugs can't be fixed is absurd.

If there were a bug that gave some people a million extra coins for no reason in bitcoin or any other coin, you can bet there would be a fix to remove those coins.

As you say, this is all an experiment. If people abandon the coin in droves because of the reverse split, then that will be a useful experiment and we can all get on with our lives with some other coin. Most of us believe that the value of a coin with the cryptonote feature set, no-premine, no-instamine, no-tax, and a bitcoin-like reward schedule is compelling. We'll see if that turns out to be correct.