Originally posted by: HimizujinEternia
If there really was a change of heart for Gaara, this could be very bad for the sound. And I'm guessing there was. Why? I distinctly recall him apologizing to Temari.

Of course, this story will all be for nothing is Naruto manages to get Sasuke back to the Leaf. Why? Sasuke has all the makings for a killer villian. His character development has it prectically written into him.
I believe that, if there's somebody who can redeem Gaara is Temari, and Kankuro to a certain extent.
We've seen much of Temari's bitchy side, but she also has shown her nice side. She was somehow aprehensive when she heard of the possibility of another war. That's a good indication that she's not that evil.
Unlike Kankuro, we can see that during the Chunnin exam at the Death Forest, she doesn't have a totally nasty and hostile attitude towards him.
There's reason to believe that Gaara is changing his feelings toward his sibilings and life in general. As you pointed out, he did apologize to them. Obviously his change of attitude will provoke a change of attitude of his sibilings.
If Gaara has some brains, and independent of Naruto's speech, he may have noticed that, somebody *tied* with him, which has never happened before. That could lead him to the conclusion that he's not as powerful as he thought he was. Another less dramatic clue he may have gotten, is the fact that Temari and Kankuro carried him around. If they saw him just as a tool, the moment he became useless, they could have just left him there to die. So, that shows that they have some sort of affection for him.
Another important factor that may contribute not only for Gaara's change but also for Temari and Kankuro's is that fact that the Kazekage is gone. That guy was a bad influence to his kids, and overall a horrible role model for them. His death brought the possibility for them to act on her own instead of living by strict rules. They are alone, now, and will have to learn to rely on each other to survive.
It's not a far fetched guess to say that the whole emotional dynamics of that family has changed or is changing.

As for Sasuke, who actually cares about him? I used to hate him, but really. The bottom line is: he's merely a spoiled teenager desesperatellingseeking to call attention upon himself, and twistedly enough, primarly his brother's. Naruto's crave for attention is evolving. This mission is showing how to work with a team.
Teenagers like that are little primadonnas, who will get into a fight for no good reason other than to say: look at me, I can defeat and humiliate you...
After a certain point this becomes extremely annoying and finally, boring. Unlike Gaara, he has yet to show that he has potential for developing his charater. He will be there just to cause a bit of trouble.
Even Kabuto can cause more damage, and being the ambiguous jerk he is, makes his actions totally unpredictable, which is *really* fun.