Agree with everything you said. He was a phenom, but was never the same after he ripped his shoulder up against KC.
I saw quite a nice piece on NFL.com about him recently. There's a lot of Bob Trumpy in it, and it's a bit maudlin, but it was poignant.
It was a shame his career got cut short. Today, maybe they could have done some other surgery to repair his shoulder, but he was never the same again.
The other thing I remember about him was his absolutely sick play-action fake handoff. The cameramen were NEVER able to follow it.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/cincinnati-bengals/0ap3000000493964/Greatness-cut-short-for-Greg-Cook