Why should we care about his desired timeline? The docs are not his property.

If he did not have an expectation that they would follow his timeline, he would be less likely to leak the docs to them, and possibly less likely to leak the docs at all. It's not like Snowden couldn't have just dumped all the docs on us if that was his intent.

So we have to sit around while The Guardian decides which docs are important..

And don't unwarrantedly put people in harms way, &c. Yes. It's called journalism. It's not perfect, but neither would an unfiltered dump have been. And it's far better than us not getting the docs at all, isn't it? Which is certainly another timeline Mr. Snowden could have chosen, at far greater personal convenience.

Ok, I see your point.