Satoshi very likely crafted the identity to avoid the very kinds of attention that Gaven Andresen is having to deal with, but would have the added pressure of being "the guy who invented it all" and likely would have to take the brunt of a lot of verbal abuse from people who believed him to be the next incarnation of Satan or something. And so out of respect for the obvious talent of this individual to let go of any need to be a central figure, I offer heartfelt thanks for being strong enough to step out of the limelight and just allow Bitcoin to grow "in the wild" as it were, without having to be the one pumping it up into something it's not, or whatever.
Agree with you.
I don't know what's more amazing:
1. That he (they?) knew enough about various fields (economics, p2p, software,crypto) to tie everything together brilliantly in an unprecedented stroke of insight with a working real-world implementation as a bonus.
2. That he (they) could see so far ahead in terms of a successful outcome to the Bitcoin experiment, so as to cover his (their) tracks so thoroughly from
before the very first step. The entire planet is trying to figure out his identity, yet his precautions resist being cracked. Most of us would've slipped up somewhere, most likely talking about prelliminary ideas on mailing lists or forums or to friends or family while developing the concept, before grasping its significance or feeling the need to seriously assess political risk.
In fact, the latter point makes me think it was a single individual. These kinds of secrets and paranoia would be very hard to maintain as a group, especially when extended to friends and family of multiple individuals, who would undoubtedly take an interest and at least once ask "what's this new project you're working on which is taking up so much of your time?".