Loki has one of the two DF's that Rocks was after that some ancient figure had, like how Luffy had the Nika fruit, and Teach has his fruit which is obviously going to be tied to Davy Jones. They're all linked together as a trio that can/will fight Imu EOS. I'm not grouping them together out of personal preference. Idk what in WCI makes him seem like fodder, but we're in Elbaf now, we saw Gaban describe even HK Harald who Loki could stop as a threat to the entire world, beyond even himself, and Imu himself calling Loki a monster.
Not sure what the argument is here. Do you believe there are other god level characters randomly through the story now, or are you talking about flashback stuff? Loki was at least mentioned a couple years ago, and it doesn't really seem like there are any major islands for the SHP to explore after Elbaf. Oda is pretty clearly setting up the EOS with all the stuff happening this arc, idk the point of introducing a new strongest character every arc, that would be straight up like, Pokemon tier writing, where the point is completely hype and not story at all. I don't think Oda is at that level just yet, there's at least some story consistency here.
Imu doesn't want to destroy Elbaf though, they want to rule it. So why would they randomly leave and DR Loki to fight Luffy? Loki and Luffy vs Imu makes more sense, especially given the fact that Imu is the villain of the FB.
And either way, that would just mean Luffy would leave this arc as the strongest character in the verse except Imu. Which isn't actually crazy, OP has gone on for about 30 years now, I don't think we should actually assume there will be another 1000 chapters dedicated to powercreeping Loki.
You can have your opinion ofc, but saying those two or Sanji are going to surpass Loki imo, is just crazy. Is Kidd having metal powers supposed to be a bigger deal then the fact that you had giants ruling the new world, having a thousand years of sins, fighting Nika/Imu and an ancient Giant central to Rocks D Xebecs plan?