Zack

Bah! This coming from someone who wants ZackXAerith!!! Kidding. But no Cloud wants it all.

Anyway back on topic, someone has already mentioned it but i'm very curious as to if Karin did really do something to Sasuke like Suigetsu said or if kishi will simply dismiss that as something he simply said to piss her off more. But she did really really react to that comment.

It's weird, like i've said in other threads Sasuke doesn't seem to me like someone who's concerned with women yet. As far as the connection, when i first saw her, and didn't know her abilities, and hair color, i thought Orochimaru was so overly lovely dovey to Sasuke that he created a female Sasuke.... Seriously I did.

There's even a fic on fan.net called I hate you I love you that represents their abusive love-hate relationship. You should read it its freckin' hilarious!

Kishimoto wants to finish this series as quickly as possible, Kyuudaime; there's another series he's got planned out and wants to start on.
Also, with the way things have turned out, what's the point in adding another time skip to this series? Naruto has become five times stronger than he was at the beginning of Part II simply because he's come so close to mastering the sage arts. He's already given Sakura a cheat at training, which is her superb chakra control and intelligence; Sasuke's a prodigy with a Sharingan; Naruto has the Kyuubi; Shikamaru has an IQ of, what was it, over 200 (OVER 200! ) ?

If Kishimoto wants to develop Hinata, that's fine, but it's not going to be by giving Naruto to her. She's so dependent on what he does - that is, motivate her - that she fails to see the potential she has without his image as her beacon to lean on. She stupidly listened to Naruto in her battle against Neji, almost getting herself killed in the process -- do you see where I'm going with this? I'm pretty sure Kishimoto realizes this himself, and, should he focus on her at all (which is a little doubtful), it would be to help her overcome her obsession with Naruto and use her own strengths of compassion and courage as means of becoming stronger.