Originally posted by: hiten mitsurugi
Let's use your example of the nick name. If they gave the nick name (god of all shinobi) to the third, then the fourth came along and was way more powerful than the third. Obviously the fourth deserved the nick name more than the third, but since the third came before the fourth, he got the nick name. The village can not take away such a name once bestowed upon someone of the thirds caliber. Even if the fourth deserved it. That's why the nick names don't mean anything.

Do you guys know what the term successor means. We're not talking about a royal family, who because of lineage becomes hokage. We're talking about the strongest person in the clan, not best suited as you suggest. Retirement was my whole point. The third was indeed strong, but because the fourth came along, who was stronger; he felt like he could retire. Notice how after the fourth died, there wasn't anyone stronger than himself to be named hokage, therefore he remained hokage, even to old age.
When the 4th became the Hokage, it was because he was stronger than the current Hokage, because the current Hokage was a weak (I use that word loosely), old man. BUT, this does not mean that the 4th was stronger than what the 3rd ever was in his younger life. My only point in this entire discussion was that the 3rd in his prime was more than likely stronger than the 4th ever was.

And I'm sorry, no offense dude but that printer example has no relevance and makes no sense in this discussion, the concept of creating a machine that is better than a previous model is entirely different to choosing someone who is good for a certain position.