What's fascinating to me is that it appears that he fulfilled the scholarly requirements for a doctorate (including completing a dissertation that his committee

What's fascinating to me is that it appears that he fulfilled the scholarly requirements for a doctorate (including completing a dissertation that his committee signed off on) but didn't fully complete the bureaucratic/administrative requirements. The proposed explanation is that he already had a job, was busy with other things, and didn't really care. If this is the case, then unless Ritchie really didn't want the Ph.D. (or was trying to make some kind of statement) it seems to me that his advisor kind of dropped the ball by not getting his student a bit of administrative help to actually receive the degree.