"Surpass the previous generation"...pfft. If anything, this generation ("Naruto") is one of the worst of them all, and their spawn (Gaiden and beyond), the upcoming generation, isn't looking any better.
It's like how fat, gun fetish, "sovereign citizen", etc. type morons try to compare themselves to WWII or Vietnam veterans just because they spend hours a day at gun ranges.
Right from the very beginning, Kurama and the Kage Bunshin could be seen as "shortcuts" for Naruto. That's another thing that irks me still - when people talk about the Sharingan being a shortcut or "cheating", yet are perfectly fine and find no problem with Naruto and his use of the Kage Bunshin which, when one looks at how the two techniques work, the Kage Bunshin is really more of a shortcut/"cheating" than the Sharingan's copying abilities. While the Kage Bunshin may not give the user the ability to instantly learn how the technique they're copying (sans Kekkei Genkai, of course) actually works like the Sharingan can, the Sharingan at least still requires the user to learn on their own how to properly use and master the techniques they copy or, depending on the technique, it could easily blow up on them or even kill them whereas the Kage Bunshin can, especially in Naruto's case, very quickly allow him to actually learn and master techniques that he eventually gets the basics of down. I mean, without the Kage Bunshin, Naruto would have probably taken years before just half-finishing the Rasenshuriken (considering he used hundreds of clones for most likely hours at a time each day).
Kage bushin become over power after rasenshuriken training arc. It's kishi way to speed up thing.
Kurama on the other hand always mean to be op.
Anyway, I don't think a loser could learn :
Kage bushin in a night, kuchiyose in a month, and rasengan in 2-3 weeks.
Sharingan only become op, because sasuke. Kishi make sasuke equal to naruto even by force if necessary.