Reminds me of "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

my theory is, they may have passed away before seeing bitcoin's glory days. the anonymity is purely coincidental.

Well that's the beauty of it, isn't it - right now even if the real Satoshi came out and said it was him all along, no one would believe him. It's the ultimate anonimity.

The real Satoshi could prove themselves with the keys to the first wallets, forum account logins, and probably lots of evidence of actually doing the project- early prototype code, handwritten notes, etc.

What if Satoshi knew that, and used this technique to convince everyone he is not actually Satoshi, but instead some charlatan called Craig.

This is a hilarious idea... talk about 3D chess and hiding in plain sight... convince people you're not him by actually claiming to be him with no evidence, just like a ton of other people are doing.

It then becomes literally impossible for someone to out you- nobody will listen to the guy that says "heh, I cracked the case, Satoshi is Craig Wright!"