I understand what you're saying, but you're not trying to understand what I am saying. You said they held the draft because these two are too weak to be admirals. And I am saying if these two are considered too weak to be admirals despite being the strongest candidates available, then they shouldn't even be candidates.
You can't say someone is too unqualified to fill a position and look for outsiders to fill it, and then turn back and ask the same unqualified candidate to apply anyway just because he's the best possible option within your ranks. The logic doesn't even add up.
Besides, the military draft happened to fill the holes left by the Paramount War and its subsequent consequences. The Marines are still short by 3 top tiers even if they have strong admiral contenders. They recruited people via the draft, and they ended up with four candidates for two admiral positions. And they chose the best two. If two of the four were never even qualified, we wouldn't have 4 contenders in the first place. It's as simple as that.
Isn't it plausible that the 2 admiral candidates were only candidates
prior to the draft, and once the higher-ups realized that they weren't gonna cut it, they resorted to the draft?
Essentially, what if the sequence was like this:
1) Akainu becomes Fleet Admiral and Kuzan defects, leaving 2 vacant admiral positions.
2) The higher-ups search through the Vice Admirals to nominate / find potential admirals, and Gion & Tokikake are the best they can come up with.
3) After evaluation, they realize that even the strongest Vice Admirals won't cut it.
4) They decide to hold the World Military Draft to find suitably strong candidates.
If the admiral candidates were 90-95% of Fujitora / Ryokugyu in strength, wouldn't they have likely sufficed as admirals anyway?