I mean respectable theory and i can see it but you know this would cause almost as much as mald as Shanks > Mihawk you know that right?
Like oda basiacly saying not only that shanks is only weaker than mihawk cause he sacrificed his strength for the new generation, this also means Mihawk is stronger than a subpaar version of Shanks gimping him severly than a "prime shanks" as his whole powerlevel is tied to shanks
Like storywise this is fitting, agenda wise less, which
@zzShinichi was talking about