I have had the same impression that the “How To” category name is misleading users as to its purpose. I would be in favour of renaming it.
In the draft guidelines that I posted a while back further up in this thread, I have phrased it as a suggestion to consider whether the content of a new post in the category might benefit from discussion first.
I would prefer to give that a chance and see how it goes, and then if need be we can revisit other ideas like making it a strict requirement or automatically closing all topics in the category.