He has controlled the nine tails and hes met naruto multiple times. and im pretty sure he has TONS of intel on naruto. and yes your idea was simple minded. you did not even give a second thought to possibility of him simply not being able to phase through naruto and came to the conclusion that it was a test. As in at first i thought he intentionally ran into him, but then reviewed it further and came to a second conclusion.Ur idea of open minded is that there is more reason as to why he didn't phase through when its pretty obvious Kishi made it that way to show that he was testing him.
And how was my idea a simple one? What I said was a tactic that almost any smart ninja uses when they don't know the capabilities of their opponent. U have seen Kakashi and Itachi do it in the manga and anime.
Oh and u say Tobi knows about the power of the 9 tails and Naruto? I must have missed something because I haven't read any manga where Tobi fought Naruto in KM mode. Have u? So tell me how does he know the capablities of Naruto?
Instead of being open minded, u should also throw a little logic in their imo.