KEY POINTS:
So, an estimated US$45 billion ($63.5 billion) later - the amount China reportedly spent on the Olympics - these Games may be one of the most significant in modern history.
But maybe not yet. And not so much for sporting reasons. Perish the thought. As time goes by, the Olympics have less to do with sport and more to do with commercialism and nationalism; no surprise there.
Sport, commercialism and nationalism have always been intersecting circles but the Beijing Olympics have taken the nationalistic side of things to a new level.
If you assess the Beijing Games by the obvious measures - the striking venues, world records, efficiency and drama (from Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt to our own Valerie Vili, the twins and Tom Ashley) - these were a successful Olympics.
But it's when you factor in the political and nationalistic goals that the picture becomes muzzier.
Many believed the Games were a kind of coming-out party; China showing itself to be ready for admission to the top table of nations.
It was never about that. China's leadership does not care what the rest of the world thinks, to a point. China through the ages has been a giant absorption pool.
Its sheer bulk and weight of its culture has slowly swallowed everything from militaristic invaders to companies greedily contemplating $1 of profit for each of China's 1.3 billion people. Different influences come and go. China remains the same - vast, impenetrable, masters of their own destiny, thanks very much.
Nothing's changed or, at least, nothing's changed yet and that's the key measure of how successful these Games were.
The results may not be felt for some time, years maybe, but it will be China's attitude to the rest of the world and to its own governance that will be the test.
Let's be clear about it. The 2008 Olympics were grasped by the one-party, dictatorial Chinese leadership as a chance to show their power and their ability to lead their 1.3 billion into a bright future. It has cemented their place at the helm of China's ship of state.
Sport has always been used as a political weapon and the Chinese are no different. The earnest - no, make that desperate - quest to beat the US on the medal table underlined to the Chinese people that their political system is right and just; the stuff of champions.
There is no question the Chinese people have hugely enjoyed the sight of their athletes leading the world, and fair enough, too. Good on them. It isn't every day the might of the US is humbled.
But it is what happens afterwards that counts. When this enormous social engineering project - sorry, I mean the Olympics - is over, what will be the benefits to the Chinese people?
Well, there's any amount of infrastructure - new transport links, roads, buses and trains. Scientists from around the world have also come to Beijing to see just how China fares with massive social tasks like moving hundreds of thousands of people out of the way of the Olympics, getting cars and other polluters out of the way and even controlling the weather and environment.
All those things were fascinating, but they will not be worth much if there is no benefit to Beijingers and Chinese as a whole.
Many China watchers feel the Olympics, hailed as a success, will give the Chinese the confidence and impetus to deal more openly with the rest of the world.
"China will not be the same place after the Olympics," said one watcher, Jaime Metzl of the Asia Society. "It is impossible to understate what it means to the Chinese people to win the gold medal count, especially given 150 years of feelings of humiliation and even inferiority."
I hope so, too. But I am not sure the optimism is justified. After almost a month in China, my dominant feeling is that, when the eyes of the world have moved on to other things, China will slowly slip back into the form it maintained before the 2008 Olympics.
The cars will return, the building sites will start up again. The pollution will re-emerge and the skies will once again be filled with the kind of horrible clag that can only serve as a warning to the rest of us about what happens when we take, take, take from the planet and do nothing about the consequences.
Trying to make the skies clear for the Olympics is one thing. Doing it while maintaining economic growth is another. China has the will and resources to do it, to lead the world. But will it?
And that's the rub with the Beijing Olympics - what many termed the Phoney Olympics or the Fake Olympics. Fake girl singing at the opening ceremony, fake fireworks, bombing the clouds to provide fake weather, fake skies made clearer by keeping millions of cars off the road. Cheer squads were bussed to venues and, at some events (the Bird's Nest and track and field being a notable exception), these Olympics struggled to provide the atmosphere and tension you would expect in such a sporting carnival.
Dissidents were cleared away, along with anyone who protested too much, at least temporarily, and the authorities were at pains to present the sunniest face China could muster.
It was a giant PR exercise discredited only because of the ham-fisted way they did it sometimes.
Let's not forget that other countries have done the same kind of thing. Barcelona 1992, for example, is cited as the best opening ceremony-flame lighting event ever with its archer and flaming arrow. The reality is the flame was also ignited by switch, of course, in case the archer missed.
So let's get back to the sport. It was good, very good, and China deserved its overall superiority. But here again there was a lingering aftertaste.
Before the Games, it was clear what Chinese ambitions were. They won 32 golds in Athens but 22 of those gold medallists were dropped from the Chinese team. Not up to it this time.
The most obvious absentee was Tian Liang, the so-called diver prince who won gold in the 10m dive at both Athens and Sydney in 2000. There were many more.
The cut was ruthless and aimed only at one thing - winning.
Gold medals only would do. Silver was a failure. It was like 14th place, or so China's Olympians were told.
Awful stuff. Many silver and bronze medallists appeared almost shamed. Crack hurdler Liu Xiang pulled out of the 110m hurdles (the event at which he was defending Olympic champion) with an Achilles tendon injury.
His coach went on national TV to explain and burst into tears. A nation wept and cursed and the Chinese internet community is still raging with condemnation and conspiracy theories that Liu Xiang defaulted because he knew he would lose.
Sport? This is something else.
It took the brave beach volleyballer Tian Jia to stand up to the might of expectations. She refused to appear contrite after winning a silver and answered briskly when a Chinese reporter asked her if she had lost her passion in the final, when they were beaten by the US.
"No," she said. "It was not like that. I didn't lose my motivation today - quite the opposite. I knew I had done all I could and that I could win if I played better than I have ever done before. I knew there was only one thing I could do. It was to play the best I could and I can assure you that was what I did.
"We are quite new to this game and in the Americans we faced great players. In sport, all you can do is fight as hard as you can.
"We just had to accept we were against the better players but that was only after the game was over."
So there you have it - the Olympic spirit breaks through the quest for gold and the political rally dimension of shipping Chinese cheer squads in to egg on their athletes. It took a 27-year-old woman to give voice to it.
And it is that kind of spirit which just might be the lasting legacy of these Games. The Chinese people have genuinely and generally opened up and were friendly and interested. It wasn't that way even a few years ago.
The Chinese government has no interest or motivation in liberalising. But maybe, after a taste of the joys of opening up, of having a decent environment and more freedom in where they work and live, the people may in time push their leaders into the real world.
Maybe.
