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I have a feeling that those were by far the four most formative years for the company, and that his impact on the company's identity and so on was probably comparable to anyone other than Jobs's.

If nothing else, he created the expectation that superhuman technical feats would be performed on a daily basis, which exists to this day, and might well have stayed true to some degree even during the between-Jobs years, even if said feats were not in particularly productive directions.

> His real contribution to Apple was for four years of the company's 34 year history.

...during which he did things that no one else on the planet was capable of doing.

Ok, you win.