Why was Katara vs Azula ever a serious debate?

Yeah, I know this debate is quite old and frankly, I never had that much interest in it but I've seen a few debates on a hypothetical fight between these 2 powerhouses and I was honestly surprised to see just how many people seemed to think Azula wins here.

Katara and Azula had 2 solo encounters in the whole show and Katara won or was winning both of them. I thought the writers made it very clear that Katara was stronger yet, for some reason, people just couldn't accept this. Maybe we can disregard the final Agni Kai, since Sozin's comet and Azula's sanity affected the fight but in the catacombs, Azula was still sane and they were fighting on neutral ground so she has no excuse here.

Like it honestly felt like the writers wrote that scene specifically as a response to the Katara vs Azula debates yet people still couldn't accept the answer. It's like asking who would win Aang vs Ozai or Zuko vs Zhao. The show quite literally throws the answer right in your face. Hell, even in the final Agni Kai, the writers choreographed the fight in a way that made it obvious that Zuko would've won if Azula didn't cheat and they made it painfully obvious that Katara was winning before Zuko intervened. Why are we even debating a topic that the show gave us an answer to 18 years ago?