First of all to OIP: LOLZERS I can't even be bothered about you. your level of intelligence is waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy beyond my level. You should just go read Bleach or something. Now that's a manga which is only concerned with power above power above power, something apt for your level of thought. Actually Bleach does have its story points but I doubt you would care less about that anyway.
To Gorlom: Nope it was never stated that Croc's blades "disappear" on contact with water. It just says that Croc cannot turn into sand i.e. he will still get hit (btw, arid just means dry; sand is an effect of a land having turned arid.). The fact that Luffy smashed through his blades only showed how powerful his punches had become due to his determination to beat Crocodile. I mean, if croc knew his power "disappeared" upon contact with water, why would he then bother to throw anything at a blood-stained Luffy? Obviously he was trying to hit Luffy hard, and he knew that Luffy's weakness was blades since physical blows are lessen due to the rubbery effect.
I understand what you mean by saying that Luffy's crew when he becomes the Pirate King is the strongest and the strongest thus may not actually be Luffy. But think about it: if someone was a level of power that was higher than Luffy individually, won't he be able to gain a crew with a good level of strength too? That being the case, he would gather that crew, and then make a move towards Luffy and fight with him over the ownership of One Piece. Now Luffy, being the captain, and being who he is by Oda, would definitely accept the challenge and fight that stronger guy one on one. It's not a matter of teamwork any longer; it's also a battle of pride between 2 men seeking to deserve the ownership of the greatest treasure in the world. This being the case, and Luffy being weaker than that guy, would thus lose ownership of One Piece. (Don't forget that that guy who had a higher level of strength than luffy could also gain nakama who could proceed to beat the rest of the SH crew; it's easy to attract strong members when you're strong yourself.) Then he would no longer be the Pirate King! Note that this does not just apply to Luffy; it applies to anyone who gains One Piece, that the pride of the captain of the crew who gains it will want to be deserving of it too against the captains of other crews.
Luffy understands this, and understands this very very well. He thus knows that he can NEVER lose to anyone in terms of strength, otherwise it would mean that he would not be able to keep his position of PK. Thus, it is a very natural occurrence that having the strongest crew would also mean that the captain of that crew would be the Strongest man in the world, maybe perhaps at most tied to one other person, and thus this is where the strength of the crew itself would determine who the true Pirate King is. How do we know that Luffy understands this? When he met Ace, and Ace tells him that he will make WB PK, and not Luffy, Luffy says "It's Ok, I'll just have to fight him!" Notice he didn't say "i'll just have to avoid him" "i'll just have to get One Piece first". It was pure, simple, direct. To be the PK, you have to be the strongest. There's no 2 ways about it. I'm not claiming to be Oda or anything, but i think the theme of pride is also quite evident in One Piece.
And the Enel example is that Zoro lost to Enel while Luffy beat Enel. You'll say that that's because Luffy's body is made of rubber, so it's not fair. Then I'll say that yeah that's his strength and so Mr 1 might be his weakness so it doesn't really say much about their relative strength. Besides, going by what i said about Croc's sand blades, Luffy can still beat Mr 1, but that's another story which i don't think we wanna discuss here.
I don't understand by " Luffy can't beat Robin but Robin can't beat Luffy either". '_'? But either way, even if Robin borrowed a few blades, she would still lose to Luffy, and i believe she knows that herself. It's not that she's underestimated, but that Luffy is way too strong.
And I understand what you mean by power /= strength. Truthfully, the direct translation of the japanese word used is "power". As in, there is a word before "chikara" which i, not being japanese, don't understand why it isn't said in the introduction of the 1st theme song of the anime. That word would make up the term "power". Thus, you're saying that Zoro, being a part of Luffy's crew, can still be equal, or maybe be even more powerful than Luffy, and that still would not jeopardise Luffy's plan of being PK. Now my explanation isn't going to convince everyone, but here's my take on this: Luffy won't allow himself to be behind Zoro. I'm basing this on presumption that Luffy also has not just a man's pride, but his pride of being the captain of his crew. Some of you might go "so?" while others might understand that this thought, this feeling, this pride of of a leader of not allowing oneself to fall behind his crew will make Luffy the strongest in his crew no matter what. I won't blame you if you don't understand this. It's the will not to be beaten that drives a man on, and I think Luffy has got the most of that in all his crew, perhaps all in One Piece Universe.
Thanks for the compliment, i actually do have a lot of fun having this sort of give-and-take debate. I just hate it when people start forcing it on others that theirs is the only right way, or they just start being very egoistic about it. It's as if they're the only ones in the world who can't ever make a single mistake or something.
Your words spark quite a bit of inspiration too ;p.