Good post Eli, and contrary to some other comments before I think your post is important because this insight is not yet general knowledge. I've talked to university physics professors in their fifties who talked of Einstein as if he was superhuman.

I think apart from luck and right time/right place there were some other factors too why Einstein is so popular: he had an air of showmanship about him, which is probably rare in scientists. That was what appealed to the public and made him an interesting figur to report about.

And, probably even more important, his work was about something which everybody could relate to: space and time.

John von Neumann was, IMHO, far more of a genius than Einstein, but he is not very known to the public. Maybe because QM, algorithms, CA and game theory are more difficult to relate to on an emotional level than the "twin paradox".