Can we all stay anonymous as we build alternatives?

I hope you’re right about this - I would want to help out a project like this.

The Starfish and the Spider playing out again.

I remember they were working on a decentralized whirlpool coordinator, was it ever finished or is whirlpool effectively dead?

That's exactly their goal. Milions of almost empty anonymity pools do not provide any privacy. Privacy is one of the thing that will have to be solved on chain eventually. (Yes, I know there are tradeoffs)