A quick check discloses the the NYT gives Essjay's real name (which is not all that identifying: a raw google on his name produces at least six different people in the first page alone). Wikipedia hiding his name isn't going to "protect" him at all.
If we think that Wikipedia is important, then Essjay's sins are important. Either it will be an important crisis that we got past, or it will be the first major outbreak of a problem we never learned to deal with. Either way, people ten years from now who write about Wikipedia are going to mention the incident.