Talk is never cheap. Communicating your thoughts to people without the exact same kind of expertise as you is the most important skill.
This quote is from Torvalds, and I'm quite sure that if he weren't able to write eloquent English no one would know Linux today.
Code is important when it's the best medium to express the essence of your thoughts. Just like a composer cannot express the music in his head with English words.
I don't think Linus is a people person. This is something which he talks about himself in the famous ted-ed video.
I just re-watched the video (currently halfway) & I feel like the point of Linux is something which you are forgetting but it was never intended to grow so much and Linux himself in the video when asked says that he never had a moment where he went like oh this went big.
In fact he talks about when the project was little. On how he had gratitude when the project had 10 people maybe 100 people working on it and then things only grow over a very large time frame (more than 25-30years? maybe now 35 just searched 34)
He talks about how he got other people's idea which he couldn't have thought of things themselves and when he first created the project he just wanted to show off to the world to look at what I did (and he did it mainly for both the end result of the project and programming itself too) and then he got introduced to open source (free software) by his friend and he just decided to have it open source.
My point is it was neither the code nor the talk. Linus is the best person to maintain Linux, why? Because he has been passionate over it for 25 years. I feel like Linux would be just as interested in talking about the code and any improvements now with maybe the same vigour as 34 years ago. He loves his creation & we love Linux too :)
Another small point I wish to add is that if talk was the only thing, then you are missing the point because Linux was created because hurd was getting delayed (so all talks no code)
Linux himself says that if the hurd kernel would've been released earlier, Linux wouldn't have been created.
So all talk no code Hurd project (which from what I hear right now is still a bit limbo as now everyone [rightfully?] uses linux) is what led to creation of linux project.
Everyone who hasn't watched Linus's ted ed should definitely watch it.
The Mind Behind Linux | Linus Torvalds | TED : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8NPllzkFhE
You want a real mind bender? Imagine a universe where Linus's original usenet post didn't go viral.