Cool overview! I don’t think I cleanly fall into either camp, mostly because I see social conflict systems as a specific tool developed to address inadequacies in social contract play. I think that there’s a lot of gaps they don’t wind up covering–but you can also build mechanical frames around those gaps as well. Something you allude to in your post, which I’ve been largely disappointed by in social conflict systems, is the lack of constructive social exchange. I enjoy mechanics as a way to get people to step back and explicitly think about the dynamics of what’s going on, and I feel a big thing that social conflict systems do is to encourage you to think of the destructive, even toxic ways that social exchange breaks down into contests of will.

My favorite stealth social exchange system is the Sword To Sword minigame in The King is Dead/Firebrands, and I think that’s a very compelling way to handle the multifaceted nature of how social exchanges can go. You have plenty of opportunity to take it in a conflict direction if things go south, but it equally encourages cooperation and the building of intimacy between characters. You go from prompt to prompt, and it’s your choice what to offer to the other participant–and their choice to respond as they wish. What it does really well is allow for an emotional win-win outcome, where both sides have shifted themselves so that they both gain from the exchange by building a relationship.