Proposition

I'm finishing up an article on the Battle of the River Plate for WIFR, and I'd like to run a proposition by ID's readership:

The essential questions of the Battle of the River Plate ought not to be "how did the British cruisers do so well against a German pocket battleship?" but rather "how did a glorified German heavy cruiser do so well against a trio of British cruisers?"

This is to say, my argument will be that Graf Spee performed more than adequately as a combat vessel, and was lost primarily because of failures of German intelligence and command. Thoughts?