You are judging sales based on a successful movie adaptation rather than independent new content.
The previous Boruto chapters were focused on Naruto and Sasuke who are the most popular characters from an incredibly popular franchise.
From chapter 11 onwards people will start to see if they actually like Boruto's own story or not.
You need to decide what is really your point, first you say pacing sucks because it is just a one years long adaptation of the movie/novel, than you say that the sales success was exactly due to the repetition of a content everyone already seen over a year before.
I'm not saying this series doesn't have a fair share of problems, but sometimes you seems to just want it to to have every single possible problem, you seem to be so eager to see it fail, that would be easier to just drop the series altogether. Or maybe I just got into it with expectations so low, that I ended up thinking it has less problems than I thought it would.
Just to make it clear that pacing can make or break a popular series even for Japanese audiences, remember that Bleach plummeted down from HM onwards because it dragged on in unnecessary parts while rushing on things related to the central plot.
I've never said pacing couldn't kill a series in the other side of the world, just that given its insane sales (specially given it doesn't have any new content), it doesn't seem that the overall evaluation of its pacing by the western audience is shared by the Japanese audience, and I agree that the next few months would give us a better idea of its performance.
As for Kawaki's rivalry with Boruto being a central theme. I think that having mirroring cursed marks, opposing goals and a massive fight right at the prologue serves as strong evidence to suggest that.
That comparison is kind of sad because the prologue establishes that Konoha got destroyed before Sarada becomes Hokage.
I've never said Kawaki isn't important to the plot, just that you may be reading too much into it early on. Like I said, in Naruto, until the endgame villain (Kaguya) really appeared, we had lots of false leads to the lead villain, first we had Orochimaru, them Akatsuki, them Pain, them Obito, them Madara, and only in last couple years out of 15 we really discovered who would be the final boss. It is a plot device used so much in Naruto, that it would be naive to not assume it wouldn't be used in Boruto, I really doubt the Kawaki fight would be anywhere near the last arc.
We already seen Konoha partially or completely destroyed at least three times (Orochimaru/Sand Invasion, Pain Invasion and Momoshiki/Kinshiki invasion), so I really don't read too much into it, the same goes to the idea that Kawaki and Boruto's marks are cursed seal marks, it could be, but it couldn't, at this point it could be anything, it is just too early to know. The only real indication we had of it really being cursed seal marks was Boruto's dark sclera when he activates his supposedly implanted Byakuugan, but now with the anime out we already know that Boruto's Byakuugan was his own all along and that it has a dark sclera since he first activates it.
In the end you may be proven right all along, but I really think that at this moment, where nothing is really defined in the series, you're jumping to conclusions based just on too much opinion and too little facts.
As for how Sasuke and Naruto got out of the story. I am of the opinion that either Sasuke lost his shit again and they killed each other. That or whoever killed them was taken out by Boruto and Kawaki working together.
It may be, or it may not be. For instance, Kawaki states that he sent Naruto somewhere, but it is never really stated if he was killed, he may have been sealed, like Kaguya, he may have been sent to another dimension where he could not get out without help, like Momoshiki and Kinshiki did to him. Sincerely I'm wondering far more about what's Sasuke's whereabouts than Naruto, since of the two, Naruto is the one we know that a clever plot could trap somewhere he could not get out on his own.
Well, no one can say for sure, but if Boruto follows the plot themes of Naruto he and Sarada are destined to become even stronger than the previous generation. That isn't even considering the god-like genetics of the two, or that Boruto just got "god powers" for defeating a "god".
So in my opinion? Yes, at some point, Boruto and Sarada are going to be stronger than those who came before them.
Tobirama, Hiruzen, Minato, Tsunade and Kakashi were nowhere near Hachirama's level and they still ended up being the most powerful ninja of their time, I highly doubt Boruto and his team would get to the same level as Naruto and Sasuke, but I can easily see that they become the stronger of their generation and the only viable leaders of the ninja world, maybe with Gaara's kids as close seconds.
