[Frenchie]

I think everyone's being very sarcastic. (I've been too so I can't really blame you for it)

To be truly stupid to me, they would have all bankai'd. (Ukitake and Kyouraku's bankais could have easily been just absorbed before we saw them)
As it is however, 4 captain releases means they both hedged their bets and made sure the sample size was big enough to work a counter-strategy. (SS doesn't have to know there's only one way to seal a bankai. What if Renji's opponent used a different seal/method? ie do you survey one dude in Wisconsin to determine Obama vs Romney or do you take a bigger sample?)

The Captains are clearly testing the water and it only seems logical. They got a bit of the idiot ball by not connecting the dots between Quincies being able to use bankai and the sealing (aka stealing), but then again you're talking about people that have had hundreds of years of relationship with their zanpakuto as an extension of their body, so it may not seem so unlikely for them to have assumed the Quincies were just suppressing bankai, not taking it away entirely.

Also As Nodt's smile was funny in a trolololol kind of way.