First, none of this has anything to do with opensourcing the bitstreams or not.  Regardless of how much hardware he has personally, this wouldn't change either way.  I fail to see how this is relevant.

That's the problem though. This particular IP's purpose is to generate profit directly.  Therefore, the IP actually doesn't have any other value outside the amount of commission he would make with it unless it is sold entirely, such as through the bounties offered.  That's the point.  The only way it would have an increased value to the creator is if it is somehow generating more profit than we're led to believe.  Regardless of how someone may feel about their IP, it's worthless if in the end there is little to nothing to show for it.

You can't compare Windows XP to this bitstream.  Windows XP was successfully sold to millions at a profit already, and XP licenses are still valid.  Windows XP has turned a profit for MS, so, they have no reason to accept a "couple thousand bucks" to open source it.  The difference here is, assuming this bitstream legitimately does what we're told as advertised and nothing more, then the creator has not profited from it and will not profit from it more than the value of the up front bounties offered to simply release it in source form.