Pluto's early discovery is the main reason there is any debate
Had Pluto been found like all the other KBOs and TNOs starting in 1992, we would not
be having any debate about what it is.
Pluto is smaller than the United States and several other KBOs (and I bet a lot more we
haven't found yet), it has a solar orbit with a 17-degree tilt from the ecliptic and
gets closer than Neptune. Sure it has three moons, but so do lots of other objects
that are already determined to be planetoids and KBOs.
People just do not realize (or bother to realize) Pluto's true nature. If they did, they
would not have any issue about where it really belongs in the Sol system.