Not going to lie, I was thinking of this excerpt from your translation:
And missed this one:
I'd still lean on it being dubious since it's in the yellow portion of "Essence," the other time the Vivre Card mentions it says he behaves like one, and it's not in the profile.
I'll say we'll agree to disagree in the meantime. Either way, I don't dispute Lafitte's similarities to Sanji and Brook.
It's prolly not in his profile bcoz his primary role on the ship is Navigator. Might also have something to do with Oda wanting to keep Laffite somewhat inconspicuous to the OP world like he's done with Sanji to a degree. If you read Laffite's Vivre card carefully you'd notice that he himself doesn't like to stand out and the Vivre card also states that he's a man completely shrouded in mystery.
Regardless I think it's undeniable that he's the staff officer of the BB Pirates but we can agree to disagree on this ^^ and no worries.
Oda has referenced the Romance Dawn trio several times. It's not to dispute the Monster Trio because Baroque Works and Enies Lobby simultaneously mirrors both.
Fair enuff.
Problem I have with folks that use the "trigger" argument is that they misconstrue its meaning to elevate those 3 above the rest of the SHs in terms of importance which is false imo and not what Oda was saying in color walk.
Ms. Doublefinger was pretty damn prominent in Baroque Works.
She's a bit of an exception bcoz of Baroque Work's partner structure (i.e. partner/support of the strongest agent) but u make a valid point nonetheless. That said, what I meant by prominent is a combination of different things like "build up", "rank", "potrayal" etc. Burgess is also one of the most prominent members of the BB Pirates to us readers bcoz of a combination of the first two tings.
*Moreover, not only is Laffite one of the very rare Flight Zoans in the series (examples of characters with these class of fruit are Marco, King, Pell etc. all of whom are above Nami's pay grade), his gallery memo further emphasizes how important a character he is as it showed Blackbeard going out of his way to recruit a character that looks exactly like him from what appeared to be WB's crew. Again this type of portrayal is well beyond that of the kinda opponents Nami is usually matched up against.