This is an interesting theory. My own 2 satoshis is that if something like this happened, the real Satoshi would hold his fire until he saw that the bitcoin community was reaching a mistaken consensus and had accepted a con artist in his place. Only then might he act. And even then Satoshi would do so in a way that would protect his own anonymity while demonstrating that false claimant was a scammer. Satoshi doesn't need to hold a press conference or appear in person to demonstrate his identity/ownership of private keys, and use those keys to send authentifiable messages denouncing the scammer.