Honestly, there really is no good way to spin it.
Yeah it's 100% fine that isai didn't come, but there really isnt any way to avoid the questions from the masses. The biggest thing I heard from people at SSC (namely people who don't strongly keep up with 64) was "If he shows up and plays it's free money"; etc etc etc. Not even considering the competition boom, kero, or just about anyone could bring to the table. I think for a lot of people who are outside of the loop, 64 = isai, and that's all it really means. There isn't anything deeper than that to a good number of people.
Getting away from that, SSC was an awesome time. I've never been fortunate enough to have any kind of 64 event within a decent distance from me, and after being shown that I can at the very /least/ take some stocks, it's definitely given me a better drive to do a little more traveling, go a little farther to make it to the little events there are, so on and so forth. Definitely gonna be registering for next years as soon as it goes up, and hopefully I can see some of the same faces at more events until then.