Are "Scratch Nights" bad for theatre?

A debate in The Guardian about the pros and cons of "Scratch Nights" for workshopping new plays.

Originally, Scratch represented an unreproachable attempt by a producing venue to alleviate the anxieties of a performer creating new work. But rather than pursue the cause of those anxieties in the context of an artistic inquiry, Scratch culture soothes their symptoms by encouraging artists to make statements that are at best provisional or hypothetical ("What if I did this?") and at worst almost existential ("Is this anything, or not?").