I've got to side with Abdula on this topic. Sasuke is indeed akatsuki level at this point. He has always been good at what he does, and his work ethic rivals everyone else in Konoha. After absorbing Oro he indeed became stronger, and now on top of that, he was given the EMS by Itachi. He's strong period, hense I think he deserves his place in Akatsuki regardless of killing Diedara or not.

Regarding the 8tails, ofcourse he's going to be strong. All bijuus are strong. By all respects you can speculate that he is going to be one of the toughest for Akasuki to capture because 1. Hes one of only two left. 2. Sasuke gets to fight him, and we know how much Kishi loves him. 3. Has to be strong to make for a good continuing story. None of this however automatically implys that hes the strongest however, only that he's strong enough to make for a good story, or at least we can hope. We know he'll be strong because he already has hype from the other cloud biiju, but everything is still based on how Kishi lets the story play out.

Now as for Naruto receiving the Sage frog's training... Good, I'm glad hes getting more training. Hopefully the Sage can teach Naruto more control. Hell Naruto has still only been able to create his Rasengan one handed once in the fight with Sasuke. Naruto's problem has always been that he doesn't properly know how to use his power, not that it doesn't exist. So I'll be hoping and praying for him to learn control, and maybe a couple of Sage jutsu's as well. He can't rely on KB's and rasengan's forever... Maybe his master's death will serious him up a bit.

Finally, as for the flashback of the Sage Frog, I could definately see him holding onto a possible explanation, or information to further develope Naruto durring his training. We know how Naruto just doesn't get it sometimes. This could be what's used to refocus him to finalize the Sage training or something. Again, all speculation...