Querfeldein--
First paragraph--good paragraph.
My inference clearly relies on 2 different species of fact: 1) that he did not actually go sub-9.80/9.79 on the many opportunities that he had, in which he went hard and ran through the finish, indicating that on those occasions he could not have run sub-9.80/9.79 otherwise he would have; and 2) that on those occasions that he did not run through the finish he was actually incapable of running through the finish, and was therefore incapable of going sub-9.80/9.79 on those occasions.
There is absolutely no evidence other than wind to suggest that he could have gone sub-9.80/9.79 on any other occasion. The arguments such as those I have suggested for Bailey--that he would have gone faster if he hadn't had the false starts--are unsavory. They are unsavory as far as Bailey is concerned as well, and I have acknowledged that repeatedly. The only reason I made them for Bailey was not to show how good HE "actually" could have been, but to show that performances like Gay's 9.69 (+2.0) could actually be in the realm of possibility for clean performances.
So the argument in Bailey's case was done not primarily to speculate on his performance, but to think about performance in general.
Bailey WAS a 9.84 guy, NOT a 9.75 guy. Like Greene, he never actually demonstrated the capability to go sub-9.80/9.79, even though he had the opportunity on many occasions.
I don't think it's logically incorrect to infer that someone was incapable of doing something, when they actually DIDN'T do it when they had the chance, unless there was some sort of mitigating circumstance like letting up before the finish--like Bolt in Beijing.
The argument that he was in better shape before the false starts than before goes like this: each start attempt takes something out of you, that is not completely replaced by the time of the next start attempt. In my experience, that is true--however, militating against that is the gained comfort in the blocks, learning the starter, and dialing in your start position and attitude.
On balance, I don't think that he was in any worse shape after the false starts than before--and you don't need to take my word for it, because that is what Greene himself said. Also, it is what Bailey said about Atlanta.
The other part of the argument is that he actually injured himself on those earlier start attempts, or aggravated an already-existing injury. That is certainly possible. Militating against that is that he did actually get injured when he was finally allowed to run the race, suggesting that he would have injured himself at the 85m mark no matter when he reached it--on the first attempt, or on the third, because the injury was the result of what happened to 85m.
In the final analysis, you're right--I just don't know if he ever "could" hypothetically have achieved it--however, the onus isn't on me to prove that he might have, because the observable performance fact is that he DID not, ever. Lots of people make that claim, but have little to back it up. The wind is the best argument, the injury argument is very weak.