I've thought about this for a while.
And I don't think One Piece is something abstract. I'm just going to get that out of the way right now.
I also consider it a pretty fair chance that Luffy and the crew won't find it. This is what I'm focusing on.
I'm trying to piece my memories together, so if this post sucks, so be it:
I find that Luffy and crew can not only do the whole 'the adventure and not the goal was what mattered thing', but also meet conditions where it won't be a total buzzkill.
Let me see if I can rearrange these little facts in a way that makes my theory make sense:
[hide]1. Gaimon-I'm just going to be upfront that my theory has a lot riding on this little man in a box. What's he there for? What's the point of focusing on some pathetic little man who wasted his life searching for something not there and having to settle for his friends/nakama/butt buddies/whatever you want to call it?
Because after all of that, I'd like to see the sad bloke who looked at that arc and shook his head in pity at the old fool. And that's just Gaimon. Luffy is pretty much destined to bring the oppressive World Government to its knees, something even Roger, the Pirate King, couldn't do. I've read your Rio Poneglyph theory, and I thought 'What if they find the Rio Poneglyph, but it's not the One Piece?'*
*I'm not really going to accept something as the One Piece until someone from Roger's crew or someone of equal authority confirms it himself…or until the manga ends.
And let's say Luffy does everything he's supposed to do: Take on the government, bring it down, do what Roger couldn't do and save the world or whatever. After all of that, I'd like to see the man who said that Luffy isn't the pirate king because he didn't find One Piece after all, and then look back on Luffy's 'wasted' journey with tears in his eyes.
2. Gaimon's Friends
Gaimon is now living a happy life on an island, his dream lost but somehow miraculously still happy. Something I'm sure a lot of people can relate to (the lucky ones, anyway).
Luffy's Crew is going to be 100, if not 1,000 times the crew that Gaimon's friends are, and they've already proved that with one parallel when they lifted Luffy up when his spirit was diced, roasted and sauteed by the death of his brother. After that show, why wouldn't his crew be the most important thing he has if he finds that One Piece is out of his grasp (at least after all that trouble). He has a powerful bond with his crew, and that bond will only be forged stronger by the adventure. I forget what the opposite of 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is, but I'm certain that it applies here. Luffy, no, ODA wouldn't bring the Strawhat crew all the way to the end of Raftel just so that he'll present them as some sort of consolation prize should Luffy never find his treasure.
Now, I do have two major holes in this argument, that only time can patch up or tear apart:
1. If One Piece is Tangible, then why shouldn't Luffy be able to find it and get both his crew and the treasure?
I don't know any realistic conditions where that would happen, but the best one I can come up with is that, even if Luffy never finds One Piece, Oda will throw us a bone and show us what it is.
Why would he do this? Well, this brings me to my second hole.
2. I don't know.
I don't know I don't know I don't know.
I believe my reasoning to be sound, but if I had to mention why I'm so 100% certain that the journey would end that way, I'd have to answer 'I'm not.'
To make this post a long story short, I find that the whole 'journey is what's important' thing has enough substance to stand on its own, and when I combine that with Gaimon's presence, I'd have to lay my chips on that being the scenario, which means that once something in the story presents, without any shadow of a doubt, that Luffy will find One Piece and he'll get pretty much everything, this theory that I'm so confident in is fucked.
Sorry if this post missed the point (especially since the original question was about One Piece being abstract or not), but I figured that the topic was relevant enough to post here.[/hide]