[The_Rorschach]

Well, I personally believe he existed.

I'll grant you Plato's dubious worth as a historian, aside from that however, the Sophist Debates illustrate a nuanced subtlety which Plato himself seems never to have demonstrated elsewhere in any of his works. Plato debated and pontificated in a straightforward, passionate and honest fashion, whereas Socrates -with the exception of his encounter with Phaedrus (which is more telling than many might think at first glance)- used the hastily uttered replies of his intellectual adversaries to defeat their own arguments by systemically illustrating inherent logical fallacies and sensical shortcomings.