One thing I found very interesting is that if you read some of the Kishimoto interviews he mentions how he was the second to last lowest ranked person in class. The whole underdog mentality that is reflected by naruto seems to be kishimoto's reflection on his own school experience within the japanese school system which is probably why he uses the term genius so much. Ironically enough If I remeber correctly he said that Sasuke was his favorite character even though naruto was the most similar to him. Even in the character popularity poll which they ran after the end of Part 1 had sasuke ranked at number 1 vs naruto who was number 2.