At the same time you had Mihawk on the top ten despite the facts that:
1> Vista was more than a match for him
Give a reason why he was more?
2> Lower tier Shichibukai were holding him off
And this lower tier is Crocodile? The man that got his ability mastered on a very high level and is a swordsman himself. Crocodiles appearance should have shown you, that he is as strong as ever. Will you ever get it, that A > B and B > C does not mean A > C. This[your reasoning] is not One Piece!
The way around, Mihawk did play with Buggy. Start reading the manga we do...
4> Luffy evaded him (despite Mihawk apologizing to Shanks that he won't hold back).
Just shows us, that Luffy has grown up a bit and have worked on his agility. Here it's shown under what circumstances he got to Luffy and cut him:
http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/561/02/ ,
http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/561/03/
It get's pretty obvious, that he did just say those words here
http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/561/09/ to provoke Luffy. Not accepting that is pretty foolish.
5> Diamond Joz punked his World's Strongest Slash early on.
Would you stop calling it the strongest slash he could made. It was not direct so it wasn't the best he could do.It was just stated so by a bystander, not himself. It's just that a nearly Unstoppable Force met the Immovable Object. Would it be a different thing if we saw them clash body vs sword? Yes it would, but it did not.
Do those waves look little?
http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/552/18-19/ -
http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/553/04-05/ Absolutly not.
Can we rate a Character who wasn never shown in a fight besides the first chapter, namely Shanks? We probably should not. The only thing shown was, that he is damn strong + and has hakoshou haki. What more? Absolutly nothing. Did I say he was weak or normal or just strong? Never.
We can't argue, that he is the best swordsman, just like we can't argue about WB being the strongest man. Source: Odacchi himself in his own Manga.. :E
You are praising Shanks like a god, would a believer get of his words and beliefs? Not, just like you. You attach miracles to him, like you had thousand proofs, but you have none, just like you have no proof that Shanks did split the sky. He did not by himself, he did not with just his sword. It's just an outburst of clashing hakoshou haki. Which does nothing but take out weak people, creates shockwaves of wind and in this case split the sky.