Yes, this is a very common theory, and given the personality of Wright, who clearly knows something about the birth of Bitcoin, but cannot provide any significant evidence, this theory is very, very strong.
Although I have been telling everyone since 2015 that Satoshi is probably unfortunately no longer with us.
I've *never* seen wright repeat a true fact about Bitcoin that he couldn't have learned just reading some posts here or the mailing list. Instead, I've seen him repeat many false claims that you can find posted on the internet which anyone involved early in bitcoin would know.
The obvious conclusion is that since he is perpetrating a multi-million dollar fraud and identity theft he spent a little time doing homework, but as his school records show he is utterly terrible at performing any kind of intellectual work at all... and so he didn't do a good job of it. He produces so much evasion, obfuscation, and outright bluster -- literally screaming FUCK YOU at people who challenge his technobabble, that he manages to fool more than a few people who aren't following closely.
If you want to make guesses as to why he would assume Satoshi wouldn't out him... first, why would he need to assume that? He could continue to rake in money from victims until that time-- the scam has to end eventually after all, it might as well end that way. second, there were a long sequence of false Satoshi claims before him and Satoshi didn't show up to debunk those either so it's a safe bet that wright could get away with it for a long time.
Finally, wright's activities have caused more fixation on satoshi than ever. It would be bad for everyone for satoshi to show up in light of that.
I agree with almost all of your statements. There were a lot of people claiming to be Satoshi, but CSW was the only one who made it as far as convincing a person, who has gained the original Satoshi Nakamotos trust: Gavin Andresen. I would very much like to see the communication between him and CSW, that made Gavin book a flight to London.