imho he knows it for sure, maybe he never met him personally, but it doesn't mean, that he can't get in touch with him when he wants.

anyway, as already stated, these days really doesn't matter, if somebody knows who is satoshi..maybe first two years but for now it is more or less worthless info.

It's a no for me. Tons of people collaborate on online projects without ever knowing the identity of who they're dealing with.

When you throw in its origins on the cryptographic mailing list, it's probably considered the height of poor manners to ever enquire about who the person is at the other end.

Satoshi would gain zero advantage in letting anyone know his/her/their identity. It wouldn't have improved the project and would only cause potential problems.

I would imagine that they would take it directly.
For the last 2 or 3 years there have been many reports about dispensary operators carrying around bags of cash because armored companies wouldn't touch that field and banks were shutting down accounts... So these people were literally sleeping on mattresses stuffed with cash. If they accept Bitcoin directly, it takes up no extra space and can be secured with encryption. It's win-win for them.