User blog comment:ChiroSamai94/Brook the last crew member?/@comment-3060121-20120501153225/@comment-3119203-20120503061357

Joining the convo a little late, but anyways, as you have seen in the series, the central theme of the story is friendship. Have you ever been part of a huge group versus a small group? The small group knows each other a lot better, and they are a lot better of friends. This effect will be massively diluted with 20+ crew members. Hell, it's hard even now. There was a chapter in the middle of the fighting in the Fishman Island Arc where Brook was nowhere to be seen. And the LAST thing I want is a bunch of expendable crew members that we hardly know sharing in on all the cool stuff that the Straw Hats have worked so hard as a group to accomplish. It's their style to be a small group, being a massive fleet doesn't fit Luffy's leadership style. After all, picture him in Whitebeard's place. Or Shanks. Some of these people may have been impulsive, but they were smart too. Luffy cannot handle his own crew, let alone 10 more people.

Now the strength issue. You say that if two captains on equal strength fight, then the one with the larger crew wins. I fail to see the logic here. Zoro and Sanji are on par with Luffy (Zoro I think is exactly equal), and the rest of the crew aren't exactly slouches. If the average NW pirate is like Whitebeard's allies, I think that the Straw Hats can take out whoever comes their way, regardless of size.