I'm sure Satoshi could have gone public without becoming a "benevolent dictator", he could even distance himself from Bitcoin development.
No distance would be great enough, I suspect. Every single word said by a verified and real satoshi about a present-day Bitcoin would be over-analysed to death and people would try to interpret every last syllable a million different ways. It would just be too disruptive.
I one hundred percent agree, it would be a nightmare, opinions on everything would be twisted and taken as opinion regarding Bitcoin and it's future. It's just something that is mandatory for Bitcoin to flourish but what did it cost? Well it cost Satoshi a lot of money, he can never spend those coins or he'd be found out.