Agree that anonymity was part of the appeal

I'm not a Satoshi worshipper, but if someone thinks simply because Satoshi wanted something a certain way or said something that we have to heed his word without question (as if he is infallible or didn't make mistakes even with Bitcoin), there are many examples of Satoshi making mistakes and suggesting otherwise. For example the whole "If a solution was found, a much better, easier, more convenient implementation of Bitcoin would be possible." when describing technology that Monero adopted.

It's also undeniable that there were many major cypherpunk figures that created the concepts, research, and tech necessary for Bitcoin to exist in the first place, that emphasized the importance of privacy and untraceability in their papers/books including Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, Timothy May, David Chaum, Ralph Merkle, Wei Dai, etc