That's a fair point, and I am really curious to see all the times he was on his best behavior now. :)
But I think it's a little weakened by the fact that Linus doesn't think that his poorest behavior was actually poor or indefensible; if pressed he says it's exactly what he should have done.
As a good counterexample involving a developer of another kernel, I once mentioned 'bcantrill making a personal attack on the Solaris development list in the midst of a technical argument in 1996, and he found the HN thread and replied to me with an unambiguous apology, despite it being almost twenty years later and him doubtless being a different person now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9040602
Even the smallest sign that Linus genuinely thinks the behavior was suboptimal (not a "I want you people to stop complaining," which is basically what the Code of Conflict was) would go a long way towards changing everyone's perception of his behavior. But he's standing by the six lines.