First of all no one was hunting SHIT when the pirates arrived, all focus was on the pirates since they were trying to steal the CD stuff. Its obvious what they prioritise more there. Garling even stated that they would stop the pirates. What makes you think they were still hunting slaves lmao, a bunch of slaves actually escape BECAUSE of the pirates arriving, you just gonna ignore that ?
2nd of all, everyone involved was in their PRIME (except for kaido) , you telling me Roger, Wb, Rocks etc were yc1-admiral level in their prime ? That makes no sense whatsover.
And last but not least, wtf is VA level anyways, Garp is a VA and so are those two that are admiral canditates and so is red hound or whatevrr dudes name is.
VA level is as real as Warlord level, both dont excist at all and the people that use those terms usually use them to downplay whoever is getting talked about