Like I said before, setup a set of topics for each candidate so everyone can say whether they support it, oppose it, or are neutral, and give a rationale or reason why they think the user is or isn't a fit.
And like it's been mentioned previously, those topics start massive flame wars and are just going to be a source of biased support/oppose. People would just support their friends and oppose people they didn't like, even if the people they didn't like were perfectly capable candidates. It would not work and would result in more acrimony between users.
Honestly, we've gone beyond the need for discussion, previous discussions have turned into huge flame wars and have never led anywhere meaningful, they would only turn into threads where haters can vent their hate against the candidates just for the sake of hating, there would be more bias than ever in separate threads.
Problem users can be blocked, discussion can be moderated, and people supporting and opposing for bad reasons can be ignored. The important thing is the rationales.
Have you looked at the RfA processes on other wiki like on Wikipedia or MediaWiki.org?
Also about this,
People would just support their friends and oppose people they didn't like, even if the people they didn't like were perfectly capable candidates.
A poll retains this same issue. In the attempt to throw out bad discussion it throws out the ability to identify whether the vote is for a good or bad reason.
Also the sysop or forumadmin stuff is still waiting on a reply from staff.
I've already answered that question Dantman, they don't know anything about their own custom rights and will give you answers that are 100% incorrect, which I've already proven to you in the other thread. Don't blame me if you feel compelled to believe everything Wikia will tell you about their own custom rights and are proven wrong immediately. :)
Old discussions can be out of date, the Wikia codebase changes. You can even look at one of the files that handles the forum. If it still isn't working when the staff thinks it does, then it's a bug, one which in any case should be fixed.