The overarching problem you outline in your second paragraph - the more general problem, faced in many fields, of having to compress a degree into a few sentences to properly answer an objection - is sadly well known. This is why the RationalWiki article (which is still patchy as heck) is a sea of nuance and caveats - it attempts to get it right in less than a book for an audience who are frequently just realising that there's actually historical thought on this matter (and look how that line of inquiry worked out for Lukeprog!). I'm very much looking forward to Richard Carrier's book on the historicity of Jesus later this year. (And not just so I can crib furiously from it.)