Kabayo--
I liked your post! I agree that Powell could be the best clean guy ever, the jury is still out for me based on his performance history.
Surin was a "legit could-have sub-9.80" guy, not a 9.7x guy. His 9.84 would have been 9.7x with better wind, but wasn't.
Same with Bailey, his 9.84 would have been 9.7x if he had either a start or a great tailwind, and just possibly 9.6x high if he'd had both, but wasn't.
Like you, I raced not one, but many roidheads back in the day, right up to WR-holders in various sprint disciplines. I know what you mean by that projection of invincibility--you look down the line, you KNOW who's going to win, and why. The Terminator. All you can do is try your best.
Even though I raced a bunch of greats, not all roidheads are great (of course). My all-time favorite was this wiry little Chinese guy who used to hang around, and had a huge inferiority complex. One summer he did 2 cycles of roids, and after having run an early-season mid-11.x came back at the end of the season to run a 10.x high, and definitely had packed on some muscle.
The thing was, he still got his ass kicked, and even I beat him handily.
He enjoyed the muscle though, so much so that he disappeared and did a bunch more cycles.
He showed up at some physio thing the next year, and I had no idea it was the same person. His voice had completely changed, his head got fatter, his face looked completely different, like a Chinese Schwarzenegger, and he had gone from, no kidding, a scrawny 145/150 to a massive 230!!!!!!!
Of course some of that could have been natural filling-out, but he put on basically 80 lbs over the course of a year and a summer. He was HUGE!
Back to the invincibility thing--it's quite a thing to experience even second-hand. I've felt like that in other situations, like writing exams that I knew I would get perfect on. I can only imagine what it must be like to feel like that on the 100m start line, lined up against the BEST of the BEST in the whole world.