I’m at risk of repeating myself, but… The T-shirt wasn’t disappointing to me. That’s exactly what I expected for the secret. Evidence:
Funny thing: I finished the game before my siblings started it. I wazzupped 'em a childish text: “I know the Secret of Monkey Island, and you don’t”. My brother replied “I bet it will be something stupid like the T-shirt you got after busting your ass off with the Swordmaster”.
That’s it.
The only bad thing about all of this, is that, retrospectively, we didn’t need RtMI.
It doesn’t add anything to the story. It is just a beautiful and emotional jump in the past. I can see why people would expect more, but I’m ok with it.
For many years I did not have a any clue of the fact that I might “not know” the Secret.
Only when I started reading what fans wrote on the internet I started almost convincing myself that they were right, that we were missing something, and that Ron owed us an explanation.
Well, I’m glad it was all bullshit, after all 