What about it makes you believe it was either permanent or intended to be more than an anti-spam rule?

Fallacy: Appeal to authority

Satoshi although brilliant is a mere man and not in anyway infallible and has been shown to have made many mistakes.

His words while carrying some merit are absolutely irrelevant when they are not supported by sound arguments using logic and current empirical evidence when faced with the current problems at hand. Put simply, if he isn't coming back to address the situation we have found ourselves in it doesn't matter what he thought 2-3 years ago.