It would be better to be able to assert identity, but then the elements of a conscious experience can't really be coarse-grained states of neuronal ensembles, etc - that would restore the dualism.

By "coarse-grained states" do you mean that, say, "pain" stands to the many particular neuronal ensembles that could embody pain, in something like the way "human being" stands to all the actual individual human beings? How would that restore a dualism, and what kind of dualism is that?