The obsession with Hotei and Smoothie is the biggest mystery imo:yasu:
Hotei I can see people being salty because he was marked as the leader of the Samurai half of Orochi's forces as Fuku is the ninja half. But then he was 1 shot lol.
This is really Smoothie's last chance to show us something because after this arc, her mother becomes largely irrelevant. Oda has made her crew into jokes so really it comes down to the "potential" of letting non-M3, Yamato and Kid/Law's crews fighting them as opposed to them just being irrelevant and running away when BM/Peros are shown beaten.
Idk, I want them around not because of Smoothie, but because I want Yamato, Jinbe, Franky, Brook, Usopp, Chopper, Nami and Robin to do more this arc.