Weeeell, I kinda have to disagree about that. Using the names of prominent disciples for the authorship of the gospels will have made a world of a difference in the early days. There was a very wide range of interpretations of purported events, and even the events themselves, and if you showed up with a gospel that most likely offered a different course of events or the interpretation thereof, the natural question would be "says who?". If you can say "well, says Luke", that's a big plus in terms of veracity.
Your point, that that is immaterial, is spoken from a position where the majority of doctrine and tradition is written in stone essentially, and has been for almost 2000 years. But even then, I would think that if you tell the average churchgoer that the gospels aren't by whom they claim to be, I think the majority would do a double-take, just like I did.
rumborak