The moment madara came out of that coffin he has always held back due to cockiness. despite knowingly their being kages. he almost got sandwiched by naruto's oodama rasengan which madara used rib cage.
does that change the fact he could have easily absorbed it nope
again ohnoki did that when he was engaging with fodders by trying to catch him offgaurd
then he got cocky again which resulted in him getting pulled out of susanoo by gaara and almost rasen shuriken again by naruto until he finally decided to pull out rinnegan just enough time to absorb it.
yes gaara's sand that was lighted by ohnoki.The kage's as a whole has shown massive coordination unlike akatsuki.The only coordination showed was between hidan and kakuzu which is meagre compared to what kage's showed
1.Ohnoki+A=Massive superspeed
2.Ohnoki+Gaara=Lightened sand and massive sand and doton protection
3.Ohnoki+Tsunade=jinton larger than 25 bijuu sized susanoo
4.Tsunade being medic nins and having massive chakra reserve repeteadly healing the kages
5.Mei+A=Massive Lightning water dragon that can paralyze
Then when you thought he finally got serious with the meteors. he get's cocky again and get's kicked by tsunade. one would think at this point, he would just go Perfect susanoo or 25clones to GG right?
Nope the case is he was toying with them.
nah. he get's put down by raikage and mei combo.
becoz it wan't going to hurt him though he wasn't expecting sand in it
yada yada it continues. at some point, the kages even survived the PS assault, So i'm assuming madara got cocky again and dropped it.
Wasn't a direct hit.he was just showing his power.read the next panel
look obviously madara is superior but it's fact that his ego leaves him vulnerable unless he's against hashirama. if he even dares remains in character for even a minute against itachi and nagato combo, he's a goner because unlike the gokage match, he has no counter to them outside of PS and limbo isn't given to him till he's revived. I don't even know he can use shinra tensei when being pulled by gravitation. and like OP said, the akatsuki has 1 day prep strategy.
There is no nagato here and even if you add him it doesn't matter since he is a cripple.
Itachi runs out of chakra quickly trying to fend meteors;susanoo;mokuton etc etc
Kisame isn't surviving meteor
Konan does nothing against juubi sized katons
Sasori;diedara;kakuzu and hidan are non factor against susanoo and giant mokuton
1 day prep strategy doesn't matter when madara's is basically perfect unison of himself+Hashiram along with rinnegan
His V4 susanoo was itself larger than 25 complete body susanoo and ohnoki's byakugo enhanced jinton.He is totally on different level