Even though I am the smartest person in the room .... @
base2 wins the thread.
Making the bike ugly won't stop the poor folk, and the people who steal good bikes will see through the paint ... but do it if you like.
I doubt most bike thieves care if what they steal is "identifiable" because no one is "identifying" a stolen bike unless the thief gets caught ... and they don't think they are going to get caught. Either they are shipping and selling out-of-town, or selling them for drugs to people who are selling them to druggies, or will get ridden and dumped somewhere ...
Personally I am closer to @
indyfabz .... I won't leave my bike anywhere I think it will get stolen, I lock it with whatever degree of security I think might be called for, and if I think my bike isn't safe somewhere I just don't leave it there.
Maybe there is some guy on an old Peugeot who leaves his bike locked with a cheap cable in a high-crime area 55 hours a week .... and maybe he is just very lucky. Maybe he has good karma. maybe his bike got stolen while I was typing this.
I have had three bikes stolen (one recovered) and I don't want to lose another so I take care. And no matter what, anything can happen.
As to the efficacy of making a decent bike look trashed .... the only people who care what the bike looks like are stealing really high-end bikes and they would see past the camouflage. Otherwise there are two categories---easily stealable bike or hard-to-steal bike. The latter gets stripped, the former stolen.
Or .... you might be right. Testing is how things are proven. Science is driven by experimentation and observation of results. Do it and find out.