that just because Shepard was shown in third person view that you didn't understand you were seeing Shepard and everything else through Shepard's eyes? Come on now; you must have understood you were Shepard looking at Shepard. No tricks or sleight of hand whatsoever.
But if there was trickery involved, it might be for a different reason altogether. It occurs to me there may be a different story the devs are hiding. A story of big, machine-like, holding companies (Harvesters) that function only to harvest smaller family-type companies (organics), and suck the life out of them. Possible endings include: we must regain control and control them; or, we must destroy them but there's the problem of also destroying ourselves in the process; or, we become a hybrid more like them and they become a hybrid more like us…
And yes. You're right if you're getting the feeling of being tricked. The ending might be hiding a message that is possibly the last honest message from the devs who fear they have become indoctrinated and are not to be trusted in the future…
Edit — Left out the actual message from devs. The message? You are possibly being tricked: by this message and/or any future messages from us. We fear we have been compromised and can no longer be trusted to evaluate what we are telling you.
Hey, it makes as much sense as the original ending… Well, to me…
Edit 2 — BTW. The Illustrated Man is one or both of the biodocs who claim to be working solely to save humanity (organics). Miranda might be the other biodoc or possibly a biodoc alter ego, as she entered as biologist/doc who worked ferociously to revive the dead organic Shepard — (heh).