I didn’t read the whole Satoshi thread but it seems we do have the ability to create multiple addresses and as far as I know nobody can directly associate that address to your master private key. Of course, chain analysis companies can indirectly associate addresses together through spending heuristics.
Monero has blinded amounts which obviously adds a lot of privacy with a trade off of less trust in the core monetary policy.
I personally like having a transparent L1 with privacy through L2s. Feels like the correct balance of privacy and transparency.