It seems unlikely to me that it could be thousands of people, given the correspondence had with various people it seems likely to me that a few people have information that could lead in the correct direction. But I guess we'll never know.
I think you misunderstood the context of 'thousands' - - "If anything, I think it could be literally hundreds or even thousands of potential people." - - meaning that, literally, thousands of DIFFERENT people, could be considered, as a potential possibility, of being a possible candidate, of being, Satoshi. Simply put :-P Not that 'thousands' of people are Satoshi, like you misunderstood. - anywho -
Even if he always used TOR/anonymous IPs, when accessing his @gmx.com account, with the number of sign-in's he had, it must be an absolute certainty, that he want through rogue exit nodes or some other de-anonymization methods we are not aware of, but deployed by gov. agencies.
