Might not want to overstate the amount of cryptographic review the approach has had. I've spent some time on it but haven't personally worked through any proofs of its properties. It takes a long time to gain confidence in a cryptosystem. (Though sure, I do think the ring signature system is very interesting that rest? well). Oh well, honestly, I think that this sort of stuff is more ethical than the altcoin presales (Esp the ones that don't ever deliver anything).
Yeah, didn't mean to imply that you personally have blessed the code with your holy grail of code review, but just that the underlying crypto isn't made up of completely nonsensical claims. If anyone's going to vet the code more thoroughly it'll have to be the people Monero has hired.
I don't disagree with you on the presale thing. I just don't understand why they felt the need to do it, they could have just been up-front and open and everyone would have lavished them with praise.