The only right answer is that the retard is Oda.
Sakazuki should have stayed as an Admiral roaming the seas of NW, not sitting on a desk. Smoker was supposed to have that role but he got also cucked.
Basically Oda wanted to keep characters like Sakazuki,Mihawk and many others for the finale but he spend so many chapters/years introducing random bozos such as Scabbards,SHGF etc etc when it was clear that the pre ts characters were the ones that people really care and wanted to see.