I didn't see any citations of cases, can you relist them?
I said this in the post before the last one:
>Naruto already faced grief and despair when he faced Dark Naruto and he faces it again when Madara rips the Kyuubi out of him. Thus, nothing you've told us about the "hero's journey" justifies this scene being a necessity. It isn't. Neji's death is superfluous to the plot and laughably subverted throughout the war arc.
And it's plot build up, by what I mean amp up, which is also increasing of stakes, a change of expectations. Things are happening, you're moving the hero to a realization, Obito pushes Narut ot a dark point, which is later reversed and paralleled. You're taking a lot of meat out. This isn't an issue out of personal taste, but you're taking an entire plot point out, then jumping to Sasuke
It's personal taste because everything you just mentioned relates and is in regards to Neji's death, which we're retconning, thus making your points moot. You like Neji's death and love NH. I get it and power to you. But as we see based on your inability to demonstrate how it's structurally integral to the plot, it's useless to the overall arc. Naruto already overcame his personal demons when he faced dark Naruto and defeated him with a hug. Naruto faced his own death later on in the arc and came back alive and kicking. This is a BLOATED arc filled to the brim with constant cases of increasing stakes and expectations, so we're not missing much with the death of a side character starving for screen time. And if we're being honest with ourselves, any lesson Naruto got from Neji's death was a watered down version of what we got in the Pain arc, deus ex machina BS aside. So no, outside of pairing BS, it's worthless.
Of course, you're welcome to disagree, but unless you've got anything I haven't already addressed, even the maggots are getting tired of this dead horse. We'll see what you got to add in the next post. Otherwise, I'm moving on. 
That's why I said if someone showed me these two comparisons, all hands would point to Neji dying still in my editoral room.
And if someone showed me a draft of the entire story arc, all hands would point to that person getting fired and there'd be no War arc in the first place. 
So going to suggest this: You're cutting out some juicy meat. You may want to swap in something as juicy. Doesn't have to be a death, but you would definitely want to alter out an edit.
Also, perhaps write out how it would go. Could be fun.
I think the only thing equally juicy to you would be a 15 page random makeout session between Naruto and Hinata.
Other than that, the whole arc is crap from floor to ceiling. There are tons of problems with this arc besides Neji's death, so I wouldn't be satisfied simply in replacing it. Instead, I'd ditch the whole arc as a bad idea all around and instead make the final arc more team 7 centric (which is the route this arc ended up taking anyway and for good reason). Of course, if I had my way, the Kage Summit Arc would be gone too. And that's just with the stuff I outright hate and despise. If I'm allowed to shoot for perfection, then I'd erase the entirety of part II and start fresh.
