And it does seem to fit the mindset of the Rich of the summer of 2004 pretty well too.
(That's something I've always considered a weak point of Ruck's "thematic" case for the Protean - it fits really well with the themes dear to the later Rich, but not really that well with the joke-a-day one.)
(IMO, Sleeplax also fits pretty well the with the state of mind of Rich in the summer of 2004 with respect to his comic.)