“but unfortunately doesn’t do much for the WOT....”
I disagree. Terrorist organizations require paymasters, planners and operational leaders among others to carry out attacks. OBL was not only a Saudi paymaster but also a planning and operations leader. His removal is tremendously significant.
Paymaster and planner / "organizer" in the beginning, certainly. Lately, more likely, none of the above.
Most of the al-Qaeda operations and recruitment has been shifted to Iraq, where 90% or more of al-Qaeda met with dismal fate of martyrdom (unless 72 virgins changes the qualification of the outcome for them).
There even has been a lot of talk about the strife between aQI and al-Qaeda leaders about the future of al-Qaeda organization and leadership before the "surge" in Iraq.
Osama would have been on the run most of the time since the Afghanistan campaign and the fallout of al-Qaeda and Taliban - that doesn't a planning and operational leader make.
For all the talk by liberals of the "military adventures in Iraq" being a "recruiting tool" for al-Qaeda, they are now awfully silent and unconcerned about more recent events in Africa and ME (and particularly, idiotic involvement in war in Libya) fueled by Obama's destabilizing "foreign policy" in the region.