And as bad as the system is now, imagine how it must have been back in the Waring Clans Era. It was a "content state of warfare". At least now they only have wars every couple decades. The irony of the shinobi system is that while it definitely isn't perfect, it's a lot better then what it was, but most people don't seem to know/remember how bad it used to be. Or rather, the person who does remember how bad it used to be is trying to make it worse then it already is.
I think a lot of this comes from the fact that some of the elder folks believe that when things look like they were getting better, they would just plunge into another level of despair. Also, with Madara - I don't think that he really views the Hidden Villages as an improvement over the days of the nomadic, warring clans.
I still wonder about this. The craziest part about that scene is that no one else but Kabuto knows it happened, so it isn't like he was faking it for anybody.
I know!!!! That's why it still stands as one of the most significantly curious moments EVER in Naruto for me, because there's definately something going on there, but we still have no idea what that was.
I really like how Naruto has managed to impact Itachi even and through him, Sasuke. (Finally!)
Ditto!
I don't know. I think one of the reasons why Akatsuki are such good villains is because its fairly obvious that they had a choice to become what they now are regardless of their circumstances. Actually, I think this is true for nearly every character in Naruto.
I'm more with X-SOLDIER as far as Deidara goes. If you look at his age, he's only 2 years younger then Itachi. My head canon for him is that Iwa was trying to have a kid with his abilities ever since the 3rd Secret War broke out and he was born to late to contribute. So he got wartime training, but couldn't use it. And if you go by the Databooks, the 3rd one says that it wasn't that he just left the village to go be a terrorist; he left the village because he stole a Kinjitsu that had to do with his bloodline.
To be honest, the sob stories of Akatsuki and Kabuto aren't "I had no choice" sob stories, they're more "there was an easy (and wrong) choice and a hard (and right) choice" sob stories. And that's not mentioning Gaara's...
Deidara's age plays a lot into it. Kakuzu is a man, who failed a mission, but survived and was reviled for his failure. We've seen this type of treatment before. White Fang had a similar stigma against him, but the fact that it drives him to take his own life is what makes him empathetic. Kakuzu just gets driven by anger, and murders his elders, steals their kinjutsu, but from that point on, he just keeps being a killer and proceeds to spend whole generations (since he's old enough to have encountered the first Hokage) just being a bitter, miserable murderer. While it may be him attempting to make up for not being strong enough to kill Hashirama, it's hard for me to feel sympathy for him in the same way because it's so selfish and myopic for someone who's lived for so long.
Deidara's much younger, and just his whole attitude about art and his hatred for those who don't understand his artistic point of view makes him a different kind of outcast. While it's not to the level of Gaara, his outcast nature is more specific to an intrinsic part of his nature, like Gaara, rather than the result of a failure, like Kakuzu or White Fang. Because of this, he's more socially against people who don't understand the intrinsic nature of his expressions and attempts to show off in violent ways. While Deidara isn't nearly the best example of a character to be sympathetic towards, I think he's still miles away from Kakuzu & Hidan who were easily the most outright villianous/murderous for the sake of being that way.
X 
