Who deserves to be Hokage?

[DarthEnderX]

You are contradicting even yourself here. If he has all the qualities, he shouldn't be lacking anything... But since Konoha isn't ruled by bureaucrats, the leader should have lots of drive and motivation, which would grant him the charisma needed to make others follow his ideas, ideology and leadership. I have no doubt ninja are willing to follow Shikamaru during individual missions but throughout years of simply running the village during good and bad times... Dunno.

Well, one of the things Tsunade mentioned this episode was that Shikamaru actually possesses plenty of drive and motivation, he simply doesn't SHOW any of it. He likes to play it coool.

I really think the hokage should be a bit older than 20-30 years... 20-30 years old ninja should still be roaming the lands learning their stuff, life in general, get used to foreign cultures and people, create personal contacts, etc. 20-30 should be the prime time for a ninja and better used elsewhere than behind a pile of papers in an office. When Naruto's generation is be 20-30, Kakashi's generation would be getting to the proper age to lead the village.

Well, everything we've seen of the 4th Hokage has shown him to be pretty young. And everything about Naruto seems to point to advancement being almost purely based on ability with the way that Itachi rocketed up the ranks by the time he was barely a teenager.