User blog comment:Blackendedsoul/Crew Type/@comment-4889755-20120525212026/@comment-3425840-20120525230211

Well you probably misunderstood me, this blog is not about what the crew members themselves believe. Its about the effective action they can maintain with their military might and what other people think of them.

Whether they believes on themselves or not has nothing to do with what people thinks about them. For instance, with nine members the Strawhats can not possibly maintain a hold over a large area regardless of what they believe (disregarding plot armor) so once people can get accurate information about them (assuming that is possible) their reputaion is bound to get lower than another crew who has a much larger fleet (as well as strong fighters).

Whitebeard's crew is a good example, there were a lot of people and also there were strong fighters a perfect military might. Now no matter how strong a crew is, if there is no such balance they can not rules over teritories and thus their essential might has to be lower.