Not sure who, but someone said kakashi has a much larger impact on sakura and narutos life then jiraya and tsunade. I have to dissagree. for one naruto has spent 10x's more time with jiraya training then he ever did with kakashi, he even lived with him for 3 years lol. Kakashi only tought naruto how to climb tree with chakra and only had him for about 6 months before he left konoha for the training. Same with sakura she trained with tsunade during the three years not with kakashi. So to them thier real masters are jiraya and tsunade, kakashi is real close to them but i dont think in the way as thier masters.

The only one who really had a bond in the team with kakashi was sasuke. He was the only one that actual trained with kakashi, both had sharingan, and both had close people they lost (which when he found out, he calmed down alot, until the sound 4 attacked him and made him question his power again).

Kakashi taking over as hokage is set up also with the addition of yamato taking over team 7 pretty much, they can easily place kakashi as hokage with the death of tsunade. They haven't shown us a stronger ninja in the village either. If they did i would expect them to be sent after akatsuki to not just kakashi.