I disagree on the suggestion that he didn't have any importance to the Anonymous movement. His work is and has been primarily focussed on helping the homeless. Next to that he has been a very vocal advocate for human rights like free speech and free press.

People like Barrett Brown, Commander X, Gregg Housh, (I agree with you guys sentiments about bad OpSec, taking credit, singeling yourself out) have been effective communicators towards the media. Where many of the hacktivists in our movement were not really good with people, these managed to communicate messages to the outside and also debate those who disagreed with certain messages. This attracted a LOT of new crowd.

This isn't necessarily related to "illegal" operations, but with examples such as the Million Mask March, and Operation Safe Winter (for the homeless), vocal support from people like X really helped us organize these legal street events.

Obviously I use a fake identity myself, but it is a fixed identity since I moved out of any offensive security involvement. With the only reason that it allows me and my team to do podcasts and write about what goes on in a way that creates somewhat of a crowd around us.

I get what you guys mean though, I just want to mention the fact that there was never any large scale disagreement with any statements he made. He's been involved with the Anonymous movement for well over a decade, and kinda put a face to it. On that note, replying to your first comment, Dynamicgeektk, there is a recent documentary called The Face of Anonymous made about him, that includes other "famous" former Anons like Barrett etc as well:

https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/the-face-of-anonymous-feature-version