You are very confusing, bruhssian. You argue against my point that Crocodile's combat prowess was only enought to take out the weak luffy only to then say the only reason Crocodile can take out Luffy is because he's weak.
Usopp doesn't have the same Haki that Luffy or Zoro has. The point I'm arguing with is "Why the hell does Crocodile have no defense against not being intangible when he's apparently fought against guys that can make him not intangible?" And the answer is very simple, because he doesn't train and became a bottom feeder.
You sir think he was became bottom feeder, I think he was always a bottom feeder. We are not the same.
The real argument here seems to be whether or not Haki was properly foreshadowed, on this I don't know and don't really care too much.
But Red Dead Redemption Shanks shouldn't have lost his arm.
Wait did you think we were arguing about Crocodile being a threat in current day One Piece? No, that's stupid. I don't expect him to be stronger than Yonko Luffy. I think it's stupid that Crocodile was one of the 7 most influential pirates in that world and yet lost to Luffy very early in Luffy's pirating career.
It simply makes no sense that he wouldn't have haki at all or a way of defending against haki when he's one of the 7 most influential pirates. Even if we rule out all the uncooperative strong pirates, it's a bit much for Crocodile to not be in the top 150 pirates.
He was a threat due to the specialized aplication of his fruity power. Alabasta was a pretty big and important desert kingdom. They probably had oil. He probably has unrefined haki ability as well.
3. Don't really care too much about crocodile, you brought up power creep and I thought, hey haki in general kind of power crept things, using Crocodile as the obvious example.