Hrrrm...I don't know if I, or someone else mentioned this before, but at the Itachi and Sasuke fight, I really don't think Sasuke would've won if Itachi had been normal. Ok...fine that's been said, but what might be new, is when considering what Itachi was seeking to do with Sasuke, there might have been no choice. Here's what I think, Itachi wanted Sasuke to get extremely strong, to the point where Sasuke would defeat him, and hand him the eyes. But Itachi kept coughing up blood and what not, which indicates there was some kind of problem. Maybe Itachi was dying to begin with and had to transfer the power to Sasuke at that point, knowing he wouldn't have another opportunity to do so?