@Abbey yes, although "pseudonymonous" is a better way to think of it. That said, if you have a high profile account, a bad pub, or a pub being observed closely, could retrace your IP address - so it would probably be advisable to connect through Tor.

My biggest set of thoughts is that groups really need to host their own pubs and have tight-knit networks of trust rather than exploring the whole scuttleverse

Yup, this is something I'm working towards. In the TechTree I need out-of-order messages, and then I can start working on private-groups. There will be two flavors of private groups: things like "friends" and "family" which have one writer and many readers (because they center around an individual) and groups that many many writers (where you can add people to the group, like facebook groups). The primary goal is metadata privacy - unintended parties will be able to see that someone posted a private message, but not who it is intended for, or whether it is an individual message or a group message.