.. I'm having trouble following your logic.

You're looking at what happened in the 3rd vs Orochimaru fight... and using that to put the 4TH hokage over Orochimaru in terms of fighting ability?

I do not understand how Orochimaru's performance vs the third hokage can be used as any sort of an indication of ability as compared with the FOURTH hokage.
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Gaara may be the most powerful being in the village.. but there's a very good reason why he isn't hokage... he's insane.. as you said [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I assumed that you would agree that insanity disqualifies candidacy for Hokage... much like a direct refusal to be a hokage.

So lemme take away the assumptions I made...
a better way to define the word Hokage would be: the strongest non-insane ninja in the village who doesn't refuse to be a Hokage.

Gaara's insanity immediately disqualifies him from being Hokage.

So.. let me get to the point... to provide a counter example, you would have to find a case where an individual is stronger than the village Hokage and is also not insane, and wants to be Hokage... and yet he isn't a the Hokage.

So if you can show me an example of that, I'll admit that the Hokage isn't the strongest person in the village.

Note: insane, for the purposes of this discussion, is defined as someone who kills his own people, or kills without reason