A couple of points:

First, I have agreed with you in a post down below that my first sentence saying 'I agree with practically everything' to Ghi was misleading.

With hindsight, I would have written something like: 'Hi Ghi, Your post reads very reasonably, and I used to say and think just like that...' and then the deconstruction. Or perhaps: 'Hi Ghi, I appreciate your seeming honesty and sincerity, and your polite tone...Now please consider this...'

I started a new thread because I felt my point was bigger than just responding to your criticism.

So, show sympathy, empathy, love, "tenderness" or whatever...

My post was very specifically about empathy - not 'sympathy, love, tenderness or whatever'. Empathy is being able to feel, as near as dammit, what the other person is feeling. You may then as a result be sympathetic, or you may not. Tenderness may be the appropriate response, or it may not. I think empathy is a necessary first step to really understanding what a person is saying.

Taking the words apart is necessary too; but if that is all we do, and have no empathy to what is trying to be expressed, then I think that is a shame. Not everybody can express themselves clearly, precisely and succinctly. You have to cut some slack occasionally (OK, not much, I agree).

I disagree that it's always just "style."

You're right, of course, it's not always just style. But a lot of it is, I think.

you can even do it empathetically, and I'm not usually one to engage in that kind of confrontation, because it doesn't work anyway, in amy opinion

In my opinion it does work, quite often. It is interesting that you had the word 'confrontation' in that sentence, since usually if you start out empathising, what happens next is often not perceived as confrontation. Of course, not always, as you have said eloquently down below.