well Oda clearly wanted to focus on the strongest power in One Piece which was haki, he was scared to show awakening cuz would have taken away from the importance of haki and coating king haki (the power of the very strongest):cheers:
The power of non existing haki of King, Queen, Jack and the flyers. The only relevant haki show off was with Luffy, Kaido, Yamato, Zoro, the samurai and off screen Big Mom, . There are better ways to showcase that if he really wanted to convey that with Kaidou's crew, that proves exactly why awakening would hurt for a beast themed crew.