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...it seems you can find an expert that will agree with you no matter what your stance.
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Unfortunately, that is true. A lot of the problem is people like "John S. Layman" who pretend to be spring experts but won't even sign their real names to the authoritative-sounding articles they write.
Things get a little less confusing once the experts are filtered down to people who actually do controlled experiments and record measurements and provide experimental evidence to support their opinions.
Experts (at least some experts) may not be able to explain WHY springs weaken or why springs only weaken a certain amount and don't turn into noodles. They may differ on the specific mechanism that causes spring weakening. It may even be possible to find some "experts" who still claim that springs don't weaken.
But we have access to experimental results (RBest's spring test) that demonstrate conclusively that springs DO weaken under certain circumstances. That means there's no longer any need for (or point to) debating the question of
whether it's possible for springs to weaken without breaking. Especially since a second party (Tom Gaylord in the R1 book) has done a similar experiment with a different variety of springs with the same findings.