Come on now mate, you cannot be serious.
It was only explained recently the main reason why Zeref truly fears Acnologia is because Zeref himself knows he will suffer a fate worse than death. While Acnologia cannot kill him due to his immortality, neither can Zeref kill Acnologia due to the gap in their powers, and Acnologia's ability to eat magic. As such, Acnologia can essentially turn Zeref and Mavis into his stress ball/chew toy while he wipes out the rest of humanity. For eternity.
By absorbing FH, it gives Zeref the chance to compete against Acnologia. A fighting chance to defeat him, and avoid the fate he fears so. What good does it do if FH only supplies Zeref with purely unlimited supply of magic power? It would only serve to prolong his suffering. It is because we have seen that this source of magic power granted from FH enables Zeref additional powers and abilities, which actually translates into greater strength, for him to threaten Acnologia's reign. That was what Zeref and his empire was banking on since day one. Otherwise, FH is redundant.
Yes, indeed it did. Killing is an emphatic term, but it should be applied within context as to who it killed. Hades was already out of magic power, and by then was physically obsolete to put up a fight. We have no clue how it would perform against someone ready to thrown down the gauntlet. And I disagree with you to use power scaling, as we are all aware by now how screwed up it is in this series.
Again I beg to differ. Base on what was displayed during the exchange, Zeref's attacks were effortlessly intercepted and dispelled by Natsu. We have seen how Laxus can maneuvre his attacks from various angles, ranging from summoning them from external sources such as the skies, or the ground, expelling it from his body, for melee and from a distance, with rapid succession and little to no gestures which implies requiring time to charge or gather energy.
Some of us seem to have preconceived notions regarding the power level amongst the characters. However Laxus is one of the strongest base on both feats and portrayal. In his introduction, he completely resisted Mystogan's sleeping magic, while everyone else succumbed to it. Only Makarov was capable of withstanding it to an extent, but still affected him enough to cause drowsiness. During his fight with Mystogan, Laxus was hit with a spell that took so long to set up that Mystogan needed to use illusions to keep him occupied and buy himself sufficient time to cast it. When Laxus figured this out, he dispelled the illusion and just fired off an equally powerful attack instantly.
Laxus toyed with Erza, who was already strong enough to be a Wizard Saint then, and completely overwhelmed both Natsu and Gajeel in a handicap fight, once he unleashed his dragon slayer magic. Laxus arrogance was what led to his defeat. He was casting ridiculously powerful and costly spells when he never actually needed to. It caused him to wear himself out, and made it even possible, for Natsu to beat him.
However, he's since grown out of this and got rid of his teenage angst. In his fight with Hades, it was clear Mashima has already portrayed his fighting style to improve and became a lot more grounded and sensible in his approach and mentality. Laxus' performance against Hades was certainly more impressive than Makarov's. He was the one who fought Hades, while Gildarts fought his second in command in Bluenote. Laxus was also the one who used his body as the medium for FT in the encounter with Acnologia. While Gildarts remained a bystander throughout.
Despite being suspended in frozen animation for seven years with the rest, Laxus defeated Jura in the GMG. The Jura who was the fifth WS, and favourite pastime is actually dedicating himself to training.
And the same Jura whose fight with Jellal was unconcluded with an ambiguous ending. Who knew with seven years of training, or obliterating dark guilds like Oracion Seis, how much of an improvement would Laxus have over his peers?
In addition, apart from the lightning dragon slayer lacrima in his body, Laxus never received any form of power up from anything. He did not have to unlock his Second Origin to make up for lost time and even the playing field. The same which cannot be said of these guys.
Laxus only gave, but didn't receive any power, aside from one handicap after another. Even other side characters such as Gajeel and Levy acquired shadow dragon slayer magic and second origin release respectively. Laxus obtained magic barrier particles which only cause him sickness and debilitating condition to fight. Doesn't matter though. Laxus is Laxus, so he still survives and win. He was taken out at the beginning because it would make zero sense for Laxus to not beat Mard Geer in Tartaros.
Laxus has came a long way, and matured into one of the strongest and dependable fighters. Not just on Ishgar's side, but the entire series. He has not taken any shortcuts while doing so, his growth rate is steady but constant, and the speed and potential he has blows someone like Jellal out of the water. I do feel Jellal reach the height of his potential far earlier than Laxus did. But from we have seen so far, we have enough reason to believe Laxus will end up the most powerful out of him, Gildarts, Jellal and Jura.
Food for thought, eh?