Being "useful" wasn't really his goal. I think the excuse to be lazy appealed to him.

[Sharak, don't shit talk someone who isn't even around to hear it. She's not taking that theory too seriously anyway- for one, it's too easy. For another, if it's true then they may as well give up anyway.]

I don't want to commit to any one theory until I have something close to concrete evidence supporting it. [Deciding what the truth is before finding the proof is where logical fallacies lie.]

But I don't think it's just memory loss at work, unless that part is purely accidental. I can understand reasons for having the gods not match up, but the shinki have conflicting time points too and they don't even remember them. It's extra work for very little payoff.