[White Silver King]

good point and i totally get where you're coming from, but its a very grey road to go down to say that naruto is less powerful than pain because minato sealed the kyuubi back in place. those 2 ideas aren't directly related. i agree that minato helped during the fight, but i dont think that makes naruto weaker than pain. for instance, kakuzu helped hidan fight asuma, does that mean hidan was weaker than asuma? i think not. a lot of 'helping' went on in that fight and its convoluted, but if you just think about asuma fighting hidan, hidan would destroy him and he did. the helping had nothing to do with it

one of the main point's of the fight, in my opinion, was to show that naruto and pain were pretty much equal in power/mental fortitude at that specific time, but naruto was just a tiny bit better and like always had that final push left when his opponent was spent. its very similar to when naruto fought with gaara in the first series.

Have you not read anyone's responses? It is, in fact, not a grey road. At all. There have literally been pages of evidence by several posters that give nearly incontrovertible evidence that without his pre-positioned clones, his previous knowledge of Pain's techniques, his constant healing by Tsunade, Hinata's intervention in Pain's near slaughter of Naruto, and Minato's sealing of the Kyubi Naruto would have lost that fight. At best, he was a little weaker. No one is denying that Naruto is strong, he is very strong, especially with his new cloak. And the Hidan/Kakuzu example was completely different and irrelevant example (something I've noticed you put out quite a lot). They don't work together in desperation, they are permanent team members who work towards a common goal - the same cannot be said for Naruto and his helpers in the Pain fight.

this i totally disagree with. i dont think knowledge has anything to do with naruto's (or anyone's) power for good or bad. everyone knows about itachi's sharingan but that doesn't really matter when thinking about itachi's and his opponents' power

And the manga disagrees with you. It was said (possible twice IIRC) that had Jiraiya known as much of Pain's abilities that Naruto did, he wouldn't have lost. Even with that example aside, info on your enemy is obviously EXTREMELY important and can most certainly tip the scales in one side's favor.

and pain wouldn't perform as well if he never trained... just saying that this doesn't really have a point

Preparing for battle and training are two entirely separate things. Do you consider putting a landmine with a remote trigger under where your opponent is going to be standing before the battle starts "training"? No, it's preparing for the battle before-hand, something that gives a testament to intelligence but not to raw power and strength.

i don't see the difference if "actions performed by one consciousness shouldn't be used to judge the power of the other" as you say. 8tails is a different consciousness. samehada as well, etc... so theoretically you shouldnt count them towards those characters' power levels.

I'm trying to be mean here, but if you can see the difference I have to chock it up to the fact that you physically cannot see weakness in Naruto. The difference is blatant and has been explained to you multiple times.

What we (well, at least I) are trying to establish here is if you put SM Naruto and Pain in a giant box with both their memories of each other's abilities wiped, absolutely no outside interference, and no pre-planning - Pain would win. I honestly don't see how, plot purposes aside, you can argue that to be different.

25.Sarutobi old

How do you put him below Oro, Hashi, and Tobirama when you yourself said he beat all of them (2 of whom were Edo'ed) in old age... at the same time!