re: "and several people worked him":
P5/4L4FN actually made a lot of contacts:
Total Qs: 16,194 (USA 4483)
Uniques: 12,170 (USA 3307)
167 countries worked.
What was really tough about Martti's P5 operation(s) was that it took virtually everyone (except a few) that were already on top of the Honor Roll off of it. There were a lot of pissed off people, having been dumped over such a meager number of qsos. Been there, done that.
Romeo's P5RS7 operation was determined to have taken place from Russian soil. I have a qsl card someone printed (who did them?) that was pretty funny: P5/R0MEO, North Korea...It's Anywhere You Want It to Be.
Getting to number 1 HR is tough for a lot of reasons, and two of them are what we could say are things we don't control: 1) timing, when you get into chasing dx, ex. I recall when there were several Navassa dxpeditions in a relatively short period; 2) your age.
All countries come on sooner or later. What was easy can become hard, like Navassa; and what was hard can become easy, like the "terrible Ts" as we used to call them, TL, TN, TJ, TR, 5T, TT. Unfortunately, the activation of countries isn't aligned with our life's pattern.
Patience, good luck, good station are needed. I had a friend, that if I recall correctly, waited close to 20 years for Burma XZ for his last country. So, in that regard, the P5 isn't a long wait (last activity 2002).