I don't think it's lack of confidence. It's just a realistic acknowledgement that it's a small start and in fact was unlikely to be useful. But he wanted feedback on how to make it useful.

I think Linus is just a practical person who is good at assessing reality. He doesn't get caught up in grand visions without action.

I don't think he is holier than thou now either. He's just busy and forcefully trying to get contributors to come to grips with things he has learned by experience on his project.

I've never really heard Linus preach about other people's projects, except where he intends to do better like svn. His advice is limited to the kernel as far as I can tell, and it's perfectly rational for him to be opinionated about that, because he has skin in the game.

In contrast, Stallman will preach about other projects -- in fact that is his main purpose. So I can see why people would call him holier than thou, but I don't see it with Linus. I do appreciate Stallman to a great degree too.