>>64054589The point of a duel was maintaining your position in a society where personal reputation governed both social and business relationships and your status as a gentleman was dependent on you behaving as a gentleman, and that included not tolerating insults no gentlemen would let go unchallenged. So the duel wasn't about killing the other guy, it was a form of conflict resolution that also maintained your status in the eyes of your peers AND in your own eyes.
"Winning at any cost" would not only get you cast out from good society but charged with murder too. The law would turn a blind eye to deaths caused by duels, but that depended on it BEING a duel, which required adhering to the rules governing duels. "Just fucking kill the guy" is a lose-lose solution. Your life will be ruined, and to a far greater degree than if you simply skipped town and changed your name or flat out announced in public, "I am not going to duel because I am dishonorable coward who you should not trust or even associate with"
The reason why duels were so codified and ritualistic was because the whole concept was a mess of complex social interactions and conflicting motivations with potential ramifications that went far beyond "one or both of us might die".