I *so* wanted to be able to hear what they were saying to each other when the Democrats and Republicans were on stage at the same time... which, by the way, was a great touch.
As for the rest of the Republican debate, I think it would have been even better if the whole thing had had the format of the first half. But even with the supposed rules in the second half, Gibson stood back and barely enforced them. It was also very good.
Definitely the best debate in either party so far by a long ways.
And Ron Paul can certainly not complain about the amount of attention he got. He got a LOT in. I'm not sure if they were in some way trying to make up for him being excluded tomorrow, but either way, he got a lot of good time. He didn't always make the best use of it, but he certainly had the time.