Yup, I often park my bike on the road outside my gym and I can keep an eye on it while I'm on the treadmill. Saturday morning some guy in a minivan pulled up in front of it, got out and started taking pictures. I ran out, all covered in sweat and said "whats up". Turned out he was just a fan of the bike and asked me a few questions about riding in Toronto. I still took a note of his licence plate number!
Given your response time and the reality of the visual contact between you and your bike, the thief would mark the bike as 'not steal-able'.
Police (or perhaps we) should set traps, and hunt these ****s down.
Park a few 1199 in shady areas, and just wait.. how hard is that for the cops ?