@Akumu:
I'm confudes as to why people think Luffy is going to possibly give up on his dream, or go around depressed.
I think that this chapter proves that he won't. He has recognized his weakness before (though he didn't know how truely weak he is) and he showed his determination to get stronger and protect those he cares about by developing gears 2 and 3.
If anything, by declaring his weakness, we should not expect Luffy to mope or give up, we should expect him to be more determined than ever to become stronger. Whether this means haki, gears 4,5, etc, and/or something completely different there's no way to tell.
One thing is for certain. The time skip is on the horizon, and we will shortly see just how much stronger Luffy and the rest of the straw hats have become,
So yeah, you should know better than to think Luffy would give up or mope. C'mon people.
Except everything that he has done since waking up from his injuries IS mope.
Its not that I think he's going to give up on his dream, its just that he has powerful doubts after all that has happened and a whole lot of pain. Doesn't that seem a lot more interesting and ultimately rewarding then Luffy just going, "Oh well, I'm STILL gonna be the Pirate King!" This is setting up for a really epic return to form and growth in strength, and the return of the strawhats, with a good potential for a new nakama too.
It's not about doubting Luffy, its about believing in Oda's capacity for good storytelling.