I think the threat of muting microphones had a clear effect. In a way this debate was better. Without these rules it would have been incoherent yelling and endless repetition of the same statements over and over again. I guess US voters know what the two options are, now.
Yeah... The imposed discipline played in Trump's favor in the end. He respected the rules and looked presidential. He had to constantly fight to get time for a retort, but Biden always got his on a silver platter. When Biden said that we have a daaark winter ahead of us, I wish Trump had replied something like "so you're going back to your basement... I prefer being out there working for a brighter future for the American people". I was also quite happy to see Trump seize opportunities to mention the laptop from Hell! Biden's defense was amazingly lame, but unfortunately it may have been effective with the uninformed. That imbecile had the gall to claim that an amazing number of intelligence agencies debunked the story as another Russian hoax, citing only retirees from the Obama administration, while arguing with the guy who has daily briefings with these agencies, that report to him. A simple "that's not true" retort from Trump is more authoritative by orders of magnitude than Biden's babbling.