Yeah, they are unique in their approach, but the group just doesn't strike me as serious contenders yet imo. And aside from Mihawk, they have no one interesting in their ranks yet either. I like Crocodile, really I do, but he will never strike me as impressive, no matter how hard LOda tries to retcon him into a top tier. Blackbeard or Shanks strike me as the EoS opponents, so Mihawk being among them would've made more sense to me, and I really hope Imu isn't the endboss because I quite frankly hate this Void Century bs.
LOda really screwed the pooch in that regard. With the Seraphim around though, that just makes the warlords even more irrelevant, especially since they're likely going to be infinitely more powerful once they get older.