Anderson may end up with 800 wickets but it would still not make him an ATG because of his absolutely inferior away record. That record isn't even average. It's pathetic. He needs to address it manifolds to even be considered as an ATG.
Also, the fact that no fast bowler has reached 600 wickets is because of the fact that no bowler in history has played as many Test matches as James Anderson. If somebody played 250 Test matches and got 700 wickets to become the all time leading wicket taker in history for fast bowlers, would that make him better than Anderson? Catapulting Anderson to an ATG level just because he has the most wickets is ridiculous in this case as he has also played the most matches. It is natural for someone who plays more will get more runs and more wickets.
"His performance in Australia in 2011-12 was one of the best performances by an overseas bowler in Australia ever"
Hyperbole. 14 wickets taken by Anderson that series were of batsmen 6 or lower. I'm sure that really can't be classified as one of the best performance by an overseas bowler in Australia EVER. Also Anderson in 2010 was at the peak of his powers. Never replicated that season again.
The fact that you have to cherry pick series to make your point that Anderson is an ATG is testament to itself that he isn't. An ATG always gets talked about in general terms. You don't have to sift through series to lavish praise on an ATG.
If there were 15-20 other fast bowlers with 500+ wickets, Anderson wouldn't have been an ATG.
Stuart Broad in the next 2 years will join the 500 club. So he's an ATG? Pretty sure there aren't 15-20 fast bowlers with 500+ wickets.
The batting equivalent of Anderson would be a batsman scoring 17-18k runs
Pretty sure if Cook plays till 42 like Misbah did, Cook will be at 17k Test runs. Would you make him an ATG?
So let's just leave it. Anderson is a very very very good bowler. But that's where it ends. ATG's are reserved for players like Kohli, Akram, Marshall, Warne, McGrath, Tendulkar, Lara. Anderson is well below that bracket.
Cook at 33 fails in 90% of his innings and drops every second catch at first slip. Clearly, he is on his last legs and his reflexes are waning. If he hangs around till 42, which is another 9 years, he won't score a run and won't catch a cold.
I find it ironic that you are calling Anderson's performance in Ashes 2010/11 as cherry picking, because the only cherry picking is dismissing his fantastic series because he took X number of lower-order/tail wickets. That is what you call cherry picking.
He took 24 wickets in the series and no other bowler came anywhere close to his tally. It was one of the most dominant performances by a visiting team in Australia in a long, long time, and he played a starring role. There is no point in weighing down his contribution because clearly, England would not have inflicted three innings defeats in five Tests without his bowling.
If we sort bowlers based on the percentage of lower-order/tail wickets that they have taken in their career, someone like Akram would feature very high in the last and Anderson would feature very low. In fact, he has often struggled to clean up the tail because of his lack of space. However, obviously this does not mean that he is as good as Akram - he is not even close - but a merely very good bowler cannot trouble some of the best batsmen of all time the way Anderson has.
People very easily dismiss his and Broad's success because they play a lot of matches in good conditions. It takes a lot of skill, talent and determination to bowl at the age of 36 the way Anderson is bowling. For example, look at the best bowler of his era (Steyn). He is the same age as Anderson, has less far less international matches but these days he cannot bowl 20 overs without getting injured.
Every player wants to have a long career, but longevity is not everyone's cup of tea, and those who achieve longevity deserves to be recognized for it.
Anderson is not as good as Marshall, McGrath, Ambrose, Imran, Akram, Donald etc., but he is not just merely a very good bowler.