agree with Kraco, Sakura is still determined and sometimes shows flashes of brilliance through her ability and selflessness, but I always thought she was supposed to be smart...
She has yet to capitalize on any openings (or even try to make them). Worst of all, she freezes up in critical situations. Props to the explosive tag move.

Speaking of explosive tags, why doesn't someone use one on Deidara? It was mentioned that Kakashi should be able to use his Sharingan to have better aim, maybe even some prediction ability. He's smart, as we've seen, so why not set a small trap for Deidara? He could throw some kunai, make Deidara dodge in a pre-conceived way, and throw explosive kunais at whichever spots he's likely to end up in: bang goes the bird. He could also stop, let Deidara think he's gone back to the cave (even let him overhear as much) and then let Naruto hold his own for 30 seconds or so while he gets in position and surprises Deidara...

The flashbacks with Sasori were the best. At first, I was confused too as to whether or not he'd made his parents into puppets, but that seemed like such an evil thing for so young a kid to do, especially as his first puppets...

Bringing me back to Sakura. Do something aside from punching! Sasori has been super calm all this time, being on the offensive since Hiruko got destroyed until the very end of this episode when Sakura punched the Iron Sand back at him

(which could have been easily countered by having him slacken the 'magnetic hold' on the mound, letting her punch into it w/o sending it flying, then quickly reversing the magnetism and pulling the mass into a crushing iron cage around her arm... let's see the bitch fight one-handed...)

Sakura doesn't seem to have learned any Genjutsu at all, even though she was declared to be a natural at it early on in the series. She's been thrown herself by fighting illusions of people she cares about, and now she sees Sasori looking at his first puppets, puppets of his dead parents, otherwise useless puppet items on the battlefield, and she doesn't know to use it in reverse? Using a Genjutsu to make the parent puppets seem alive could quite easily break Sasori's concentration, after all that's what he's wanted all his life... Hell, it's what I'd do...

Naruto is still lame. Clones are still lame (bad animation for Gai's fight as well). Sakura is often lame. If it weren't for Chiyo and Sasori (w/ occasionally funny comments from Deidara, even though he acted pretty stupid this whole episode) I'd be having a full blown fit.

Not to say the episode was bad; I still enjoyed a majority of it.