WTF does the connection with Zangetsu has to do with it.
Since it was deciding factor of the outcome of that battle(or as we were supposed to believe at that time) I would say it was pretty important O_o.
And i don't want to quote further parts of your post because it was pretty much putting the words in my mouths and some extremely overblown conclusions when all that I'm really saying is that I don't like like how the reveal effect belittles Ichigo's heroic stance in that duel almost to the pure luck. Like some other person in this topic*. Sorry, but I won't repeat it for the third time.
The panel you should be watching should the one with their expressions after they came back and said what they said. It was obvious they meant exactly the opposite of it actually being easy. Have you never seen humans to that? We do it quite a lot.
Oh, I'd just talked about this exact situation with one buddy from MAL(feel free to check it on my profile), he also stated that I was wrong and provided... yet another interpretation. Yes i said that, interpretation. We can't confirm if either of us is 100% right(yeah, 'obvious' is not appriopriate word here, well with it would sound better with 'to me' which I admit, I also haven't said in my first post). And if so, I guess that the further discussion on this matter is pointless.
*and to avoid some strange conlusions: I only mention that to show that there is someone who shares my point of view. Others like how things progressed, and I can live with that, just sharing my opinion.