I never said that Costa Rica doing well is good for concacaf but not the usa. Get your facts straight and learn to read and understand what a writer is saying. I would really like to see the correlation between the usa doing well in this or any other tournament (as badly as they have looked, too) and concacaf as a whole when, the usa (and Mexico) have been getting results in the World Cup since 1930. There is no question that the usa has improved since its re-entry into the world stage in 1990. There is no question that Mexico are the other power house in our region and there is no question as to Costa Rica's potential. They showed what they are capable of in 1990 and they have not looked as good ever since but every now and then they get a result or show some kind of form. Those three teams are the status quo in concacaf. Jamaica's victory over an up-and-coming Japan in '98 and T&T's draw against Sweden in '06 is not enough for concacaf to rattle any sabres and say we are all that in international football. More teams like Haiti, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, jamaica, Honduras, etc., have to step up and show that they can hang with some of the top teams for us to be taken more seriously and anything else you tell me is just a flawed attempt at logic.
At the end of the day, its the CONCACAF champs USA authoratitively dismissing the African champs Egypt in a game that carried major significance.
Any time a CONCACAF team beat a team from another CONFED in a major football tournament, it will always be a feather in our cap. Sure, CONCACAF is not as strong as CONMEBOL, but like you said, the top 3 can hold its own, and any of Honduras, Ja, Canada, T&T can spring a few surprises here and there. Honduras easily beat Paraguay the other day, even Panama defeated Chile not too long ago, albeit in friendly ga,es with little meaning.
You mentioned Japan as being an up and coming team when Jamaica defeated them at the world cup..you can put jamaica in the same boat too as an "up and coming" team with significantly less resources. It was CONCACAF's # 3 putting the brakes on Asia's #1 at the time.