@soupongo
Shamrock will get humbled, he is Garling 2.0
if you still think he isn’t hype tool bait I guess you forgot how holy knights act,they’re overconfident frauds.
Oda made 2 pretty explicit choices regarding PL´s in the flashback.
First, he had Imu be completely indifferent to Rocks and Roger, and the other GV 6, while the flashback ends with Imu shook at Loki´s power. As you already pointed out
second, he had Garling state that with a seal, Shanks could be equal to Shamrock, implying that without it, Shanks is weaker than Shamrock. Shanks goes on to lose his arm, which has double meanings. Pre TS, this represented his ability to reach the top of the world, which is why he bet it on the new generation, and post TS this represents giving up a general connection to Imu, the WG and the powers that come with it, out of a love for freedom. This line is also pretty similar to the fact that we were told that Ace beat up Luffy as a kid before he had DF´s, and then we found out that Ace was still stronger than Luffy at the time of the Pre TS.
Tbh, Idk any alternative interpretations of those two scenes other than headcanon limits for Loki and Shamrock.