Leaders from rich and poor nations hailed the G20 as the premier global forum for economic co-operation, but critics warned the Toronto summit showed it risks becoming just another talking shop.
One-by-one, G20 leaders exited the two-day gathering claiming both victory and unity, a transatlantic spat over how to keep economic recovery on track seemingly brushed aside.
US President Barack Obama, whose administration went into the pow-wow tersely warning Europe its policies were plain wrong, described the meeting as reaching a "violent agreement".
Whereas Washington had just hours before cast Europe as hell bent on derailing the global recovery, Obama later urged onlookers to "make no mistake - we are moving in the same direction".
Europe's leaders described a similar commonality of purpose.
"G20 leaders have demonstrated clear common resolve to create strong, sustainable and balanced global growth," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
"The summit's result reflects widespread convergence around Europe's approach."
Faced with a choice of two priorities: slashing debt or boosting growth, G20 leaders appeared to choose both.
They did so in a syntax-defying final statement, through which leaders pledged to implement "credible, properly phased and growth-friendly plans to deliver fiscal sustainability, differentiated for and tailored to national circumstances."
Critics said that kind of broad consensus offered something for everyone, but little of the strong common actions seen during the height of the financial crisis.
"It is a challenging outlook for the G20 to maintain the type of momentum that was there at the end of 2008 through 2009," Australia's deputy prime minister Wayne Swan admitted before the meeting.
"There was a very powerful motivating force from the collapse in global demand and the impact on employment around the globe."
According to Alan Alexandroff of the University of Toronto, the summit proved that challenge had not been met. "The crisis is fading and it's more difficult to achieve consensus," he said.
"You are beginning to see this diversity that you didn't see in (previous summits in) Pittsburgh or in London."
Leaders are evidently aware of the problem. Ahead of the summit Canadian diplomats pushed hard for the G20 to adopt firm deficit reduction targets that could be easily measured.
In the end, they won a pledge to halve national deficits by 2013, but one that did not apply to developing countries or Japan - the country with the highest budget shortfalls in the entire G20.
The pledge seemed to apply only to Australia, Britain, Canada, the United States, France, Germany and Italy, all of whom who had promised similar cuts before Toronto.
For some critics it appeared a little too much like the G20 a la carte.
Efforts by Europe to sign fellow G20 members onto a global bank tax failed spectacularly, with the final statement noting that "some countries are pursuing a financial levy. Other countries are pursuing different approaches."
"You have seen things going back to the national level now," said Andrew Cooper of the Center for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think tank.
"We've seen an allowance for national perspectives. Certainly no bank tax; certainly no sort of hard, firm criteria for debt fighting and certainly lots of exceptions, notably Japan."