[Mentar]

Originally Posted by madmac

Another good example would be the time at the summer fair where Nagi buys the complicated russian camera and Hayate tells her "You know, that attitude is exactly what I like about you." He simply doesn't say things like this early on.

If you want to argue that his devotion and emotional attachment to Nagi develops and intensifies, I wouldn't object. That's a natural reaction of people being together like this, weathering crises together.

My point is that I can't remember a SINGLE scene in which Hayate considers Nagi in a romantic context. However, there are multiple scenes showing that he does NOT consider her this way.

He's always interested in protecting Nagi, yes, but his feelings pretty clearly shift more and more from pure gratitude to personal affection and attachment over time.

I can agree with that. But does this have any romantic significance?
If Nagi is to "win", it will have to be after a time jump.

Endless pages? Seriously? I like Hina and all, but she isn't that deep.

The development of Hina's relationship with Hayate is the most diverse and significant one in the entire story. It's also the one Hata invested by far the most time in - not counting Nagi - and the one which has the most "ups and downs". Tracking those indepth would indeed take alot of time.

There's no question that Hayate is attracted to Hina, (As he is Maria) but he hasn't displayed any strong signs so far of having deeper feelings for her.

Depends on the definition of "deeper feelings". An attraction is certainly there, for more than that, Hayate would need to realize that he's absolutely in Hina's strike zone (at the moment he still thinks that she's "too good for him", like Maria indirectly put it). And Hata is totally aware of that, which is why he loves to play around this focal point, the last time at c276, when the cat accused Hina of "loving this butler", and Hayate put her in a hotspot when he demanded that she denied that.

Athena already won the original "Royal Garden" story, from which Hayate no Gotoku was born. The remaining story will - in my opinion - be resolved either with the canonic Nagi ending after a time jump (possible, but so far not exactly a fan favorite), or with Hina. She has accumulated way too many fans and karma points to be ignored. She MUST be rewarded. The only question is "how".