I wouldn't be surprised if Originally Zoro wasn't supposed to have it as a goal untill Oda noticed similarities between Him and Ryuma and decided to use him as a Ryuma Stand in(people who have more knowledge can correct me if I am wrong)
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
what exactly would zoro’s goal be if not this?
Why do you think Doflamingo > Mihawk was such a common take back in 2010-2012?
back in 2010 we used to think Whitebeard’s bounty was around 1.5 billion
Oda is very intentional with hiding the scale of the verse
for example did you think Black blades mattered in 2010? It took until 2021 for Oda to outright have a character say Even a top tier like Oden failed to accomplish this. That was the first time it was ever put into comparison that Creating a black blades scales above a guy like Oden. And Oda introduced black blades in 1998 when Mihawk arrived.
thats a 23 year gap between Oda telling us this thing exists and then Oda explaining that this thing is a feat that matters
What fans think the scale of the verse is completely different from what Oda does
to you, the vista scene is a power scaling scene, to me it’s a character scene. Vista arrives after several scenes of Oda demonstrating just how many people are willing to jump in front of Luffy to keep Mihawk away. It starts with the Crossdresser fodder, then Buggy tries to stop Mihawk then Vista.
at that point Mihawk realizes that Luffy has the power to where an endless number of people will sacrifice themselves for him in the war. Then literally 5 pages later he tells Vista he’s not interested in finishing their fight
Mihawk even tries this again on Luffy and this time Daz Bones jumps in front of Luffy, and then Crocodile also jumps in front of Luffy and the scene repeats, Luffy manages to run away and he chooses not to continue fighting Crocodioe the same he chose not to continue fighting Vista since his goal is Luffy and Luffy has managed to escape.
if you want you can say Both the Vista and Crocodile scenes are power scaling scenes. I can say that they exist to prove a point to Mihawk about Luffy and by extension Shanks. That’s it. Both times Crocodile and vista aren’t defeated because Mihawk doesn’t care enough since Luffy has escaped and Oda doesn’t want vista and Crocodile to be defeated.
This is probably disappointing to you but it’s likely what Oda intended and what Oda intends has little to do with what fans think