Usopp or any other member eating a DF would suck, I think. The whole thing is about them working with what they have, not falling back on "the juice."
@Ivotas:
In the Baroque Works arc, the strenght level of the villains was determined by the numbers that they received for their codenames. The lower the number the higher the rank was. This didn´t mean that it had something to do with strenght alone (Mr. 3 and Mr. 4 are the best example).
This was a criminal organisation so such an order made sense.
Yeah, that kinda falls apart when you say that 4 was stronger than 3. Then it just goes to show you that the numbers don't exactly equal greater strength, but threat, if anything. This was based on pure power.
In Skypiea we had the four priests. Their indicators were their ordeals with the 0%, 2%, 10% and 50% probability of survival. Another indicator to determine a rank among them and it made sense to use such an indicator because it was priests of god. A Mr 1,2,3 ranking wouldn´t work that good in such a context.
Now to get to the current arc. Why does such a ranking make sense here? Because except for Spandam all the others are Rokushiki users, which means they are all trained in close combat.
Now if anybody of you is familiar with the boxing sport then you´ll know that boxers often measure the speed of their punches to deternmine how strong it is. That really happens. However the strongest or fastest punch doesn´t determine the better boxer. But it is an indicator on ranking the punching strenght of the boxers themselves. And in real life boxers would also freak out like Jabura if somebody has a stronger punch. They would say something like "yeah he´s got the stronger punch but I´m the better boxer and I can knock him out."
So since the CP9ers are all trained fighters this ranking system makes sense here, just like the ordeal survival probabilities made sense for priests and the agent names made sense for a criminal organisation.
This is definitely not the first time that Oda used a ranking system in One Piece so I don´t get why everybody freaks out. I´m sure that we won´t see it again in the next mega arc.
The problem isn't Oda stating someone is stronger, that makes perfect sense. What some find a bad idea is trying to put a number system to it.
You have a very good point with the "punch per square inch" thing, but since this is a manga, where a man can have strength between Hercules and Screech, it's kinda weird to work numbers in. Especially since 8 out of a million characters have had their power level tested, and it could open up a flood gate of awful speculations.