"Refreshing" in the "great place to plan a coup" sense?

Eventually they are going to find that there's a limit to how much violence you can incite before getting slapped down, legally or otherwise.

No, anonymity is refreshing because a world where you are always on the record with your most formal identity with everything you say runs largely against the ways humans develop their worldviews: by trying on certain opinions, sorting themselves out, and participating in low stakes interactions where they can make mistakes and learn with minimal consequence.

This doesn't mean 'planning a coup' is one of these contexts, but you are focusing on a very narrow example of the broad social system impact of anonymity in online communication.

There's many reasons why I find it refreshing.

Other than anonymity, talking to people who have no incentive to karma-farm is very refreshing.

In websites like Reddit/HackerNews, the karma system gamifies posting. You "lose" if you post any wrongthink, and you "win" when you reiterate whatever is socially acceptable.

This means there are consequences to posting. In *chan websites, there is no consequence to posting your thoughts (or just trolling, because that's fun sometimes).

Are they popular ? They may be infamous, but I feel most of the brain matter has been evacuated from English-speaking boards a decade ago and they at best sustain their existing demographic.