why didn't someone take over debate.org and run it properly?

it sounds like the site just wasn't managed properly. there has to be a sale or situation that would be acceptable to the previous owner, where the site could be maintained. letting it get shut down benefits no one. 

Debate .org  is/was a subsidiary of Juggle INC. Juggle owns numerous web sites. Debate. org was purchased  by Juggle as a tax write off  most likely. It generated what would equal almost zero revenue.  Juggle most likely padded the books to show that it spent money managing the site  far in excess of what it actually spent to write it off on their taxes. But you can only do that for so long then the IRS will get suspicious. You can only show a loss and keep "investing"  for so long. They most likely had to dump it, who would buy a site littered and polluted with spam and viruses.

Letting it get shut down benefits me and this is my new home. If DART and even oldschool DDO went to war, I'd be DART warrior to the bitter end.

That said, if I lacked my vendetta against Airmax and DDO, I probably would say this still:

DART's design and mechanics with DDO userbase is the optimal outcome.

DDO let you have 10k maximum per debate Round but in its days before glitches it let you use images inside debates (wasn't easy to work out how though) and allowed you to do fancy formatting with HTML (which stopped after a certain somebody, not me, altered a group PM to have custom background colours and the site admin team, via Airmax, realised they needed to patch against that which is fair enough but they then also did so in debates).

If DART could allow more custom formatting in debates such that videos and images could be embedded, we'd be onto something truly phenomenal.

Because the transferring of ownership is extremely hard and the original owners simply forgot, so the ownership goes nowhere. Kinda like if you forgot your Apple ID and password simultaneously. You can’t sign in to anything and you can’t sign out.

Honestly, it is stuff like that as well as the Polls, to a much lesser extent, that I miss.

The Polls were really not a good place, but I feel like on a site with a better userbase that such a thing could be implemented without growing toxic (I swear, the DDO Polls grew toxic before even the Religious Forum).

While minor, I also liked how when you voted on DDO there was the "what was your position before/after the debate". While rarely did anyone ever change their mind, it did make possible bias of the voter more transparent when evaluating their RFDs.

Last DDO feature I miss is private messaging could have multiple people instead of just one-on-one. Probably some of the most productive discussions I participated in were in private chat groups through that.

I still think DART is better when it comes to userbase, and is much less buggy (which is a definite plus), but there are elements of DDO that I do genuinely miss.

Why didn't you?

Its a good thing for this site because the creator stole so many intellectual property designs from DDO. It's all but a carbon copy of DDO.org. Once DDO.org shuts down this site actually might be able to accept advertising and actually become a profitable venture. I would still check on intellectual property rights though.

This site is not trying to make money. Well, maybe it is, but it is not like they need to protect copyright or anything.

Probably because it requires money, time, and computing resources. Something that one person will have to dedicate a lot too. Plus, Juggle may not have negotiated or give up the site. Do they even exist anymore?

A babysitting/daycare/petcare company bought them

ah ok

This site doesn't need to protect anything, it has to worry about being sued should the site decide to advertise and make money. I personally would change the whole  look if I were to seek to make it a for profit site. I am not saying that it would happen, I am saying there is sufficient cause and would be slam dunk in a civil law suit. 

The owner, four or five mods and a president can't run this place. Team or company would have to go in and take over a site as big as the DO. Not to mention the cost of buying domains and whatnot. Can't just go in and buy and take over a website it's like a business you have to have the manpower in the capital to do it.

Actually you can just go and take over a website with money if they accept your offer. Weather or not it remains successful is up to the new owner. Some people buy web sites just to shut them down to cut the competition.

Well if you only have $5,000 and they want $20 I guess you just can't go in and do it now can you. 

Um ya, I can. and I'll have $4980 left over to buy car parts.