The recent reply on the thread indicates that bytcoin is not the owner of the address, so I don't think you're getting your $170 million any time soon. Sadly, all those brainpower used for the solving of this puzzle comes to naught, unless of course if you can sweep the private key before anyone else can. At this point, that's the only way you can claim the reward, and forcing the OP to give you something is futile.
We used to throw 100 BTC at a gambling site in those days. I remember paying 25 BTC for a couple of cases of Girl Scout cookies on a whim just to support the "Bitcoin economy". I spent or lost a lot of BTC in my time.
I remember buying chili sauce from a user in reddit back in the days to, amounting to 2 BTC. Those 3 bottles of chili sauce only lasted me a good few meals, and thinking about that purchase, I still can't believe that I would have been $100k richer had I just not gave in to the urge of buying that bottle of chili.
Still a good purchase though. First time I used bitcoins in a real-world transaction.