Heaven forbid we actually get some development before the next arc.
Which would be....? I figured it was pretty obvious that there wouldn't be any sort of serious battle taking place at least until the strawhats reached fishman island. Of course I expected a little more than Caribou making an idiot out of himself, but at least Oda set him up to potentially be a lot more exciting than something otherwise painfully cliche. I don't expect the next chapter to be heart-poundingly epic either.The problem here more than anything was that it blocked what was being up to that point a fairly exciting chapter.
Luffy will probably one-shot the krakken and freak everyone out with how much stronger he's gotten, then stroll into town with a big-ass krakken. Also, I expect the krakken is going to serve, moreso than anything else, as its role to allow the strawhats to navigate the deep waters faster and circumvent the risk of being stranded for 10000 years in a slow current.