I just think as a general rule of storytelling, you’re probably not going to have a new character come in and completely steal the show, overshadowing long standing legacy characters. Especially ones directly linked to Luffy, like his wings or his rivals. Loki is doing this in Elbaf. But you still have Lodestar, Laugh Tale, and Mariejois before the series ends.
Okay, but this is just an unreasonable standard against Loki. Yes, he was introduced late, but it's not like that inherently means he has to be weaker than legacy characters actually. Even Vegeta wasn't originally a legacy character, in battle shonen manga, characters introduced later on are usually stronger anyway.
Again, you're convincing yourself Kidd and Law got sent away(they just lost, lol...).... to surpass Roger/Yonko etc. Loki has literally already done that, and obviously what actually happened means more than headcanon speculation
Obviously Loki will be glazed in Elbaf. Elbaf is Loki’s arc, just as Wano was Kaido’s. But there’s a reason why we didn’t see what happened with Loki vs Shanks yet, just as there is a reason it wasn’t specified what dragon Ryuma killed. Loki will be powercrept and the legacy characters have a decent chance of doing it.
1. Elbaf is Imu's arc, not Lokis. Loki is being given importance as someone who can fight Imu, but he isn't the main antagonist of the arc.
2. It wasn't specified the type of Dragon Ryuma killed because it's not important to the story lmfao. Don't expect Oda to explain every little thing that's happened in the series, some stuff is just lore. And why are you using speculation about what possibly could have happened to a previous Nidhogg fruit, in the chapter we find out that the OG user literally rivaled Nika lmfao? Again, what actually happened in the manga>Headcanon speculation
3. The reason why we didn't see Loki vs Shanks is the reason why we didn't see most of Loki's life. It's not relevant to Imu, the arc villains. Oda literally told us it happened, so it's not like the goal is protecting Loki's image.