@Sean:
Yes, definitely. It's the right time to bring Tomita or Ishigami back. It would be awesome.
But I still am worried that TOEI will screw up the cliffhanger, not animation wise, but the pacing. I mean there's 5 pages left from chapter 598. Do You think they will include those 5 pages + whole chapter in one episode? I seriously doubt it.
Edit: Well, maybe they could skip some pages from Chopper again.
Yeah, that as well. I think we will be seeing some kind of filler in one of the next 2 episodes. Hopefully it's action related.
Well, we have Fujisawa back, and probably Kuroyanagi. Ishigami is working on Naruto currently, and Tomita will probably stay away from the show for another year because of the new Digimon season, but I hope to see his work on Franky's you know what I mean.
Though, I would like to see some new animators that are much better, like Hayashi, Onishi, Hashimoto, or even Tate!