More debate debates

A story came out late yesterday that a group of Democrats had written the "Commission on Presidential Debates" requesting that they not bring up the Simpson-Bowles recommendations in debates.  This evidently comes after a group of Republicans had written requesting they ask specifically which parts of Simpson-Bowles they agree with.

I have thoughts on whether or not the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (the formal name of the Commission Obama put Simpson and Bowles in charge of) is actually relevant in the Presidential debates, but that's not my real issue here.  My real issue is that a private corporation initially established by the heads of the parties is accepting suggestions from individual congressmen on what the American people should or should not hear about during the Presidential debates.

Can we not get back to a format where candidates lay out their own cases and try to rebut the other side without the circus of 3 debates plus 1 vp debate, one of which is a "town hall" where questions are selected by a biased, but supposedly impartial, selector from the general public, all moderated by biased, but supposedly impartial, journalists?

Mr. Lincoln, do you prefer boxers or briefs?
Mr. Douglass, you have setup land grants to favor railroad expansion in Chicago.  As President, will you continue to support the railroads?