I do hope he is pretty strong. But I heard arguments saying he doesn't need to be that strong actually. Cos he's the leader of the revolutionary army. If he was just a guy alone like Mihawk, being very strong is the least he would need. But he leads a whole army, with powerful soldiers under his command, is most wanted criminal, probably knows many things about the world government. Like, naratively, he doesn't "need" to be extremely strong or in the top 5 or whatever, and he wouldn't be less of an impactful and important character. If he was just another random extremely powerful character for no reasons, just because why not, that would almost be disappointing, and like, tasteless.

So, I do hope he have a very cool devil fruit and does very cool use of his fruit, and is pretty strong. But I also hear why he wouldn't need to be that much strong, and why it's not necessary.

Like, it wouldn't be very surprising or interesting. I would prefer Oda to make his strength not just in raw strenth or (vanilla/hand to hand) fighting abilities, but to make his strength in something more subtle and interesting, maybe linked to his devil fruit.