The reason nobody has stopped him from creating clones is because thats his fighting style, he has plot help.
OMG. Its a one-sign jutsu, naruto is faster than kakashi and gai, and naruto can make clones while running. This means naruto runs away from kakashi and gai while making clones. Nothing kakashi/gai can do. And this is not even counting naruto using his chakra arms to block and attack.
Saying naruto can't form a single seal while running away from opponents whom are slower than him is hating at a new level.
Infact in all his fights, he has had a break in order to use the clone technique or he has used it before the fight. As i said if he is fighting 2 capable shinobi's he cannot imo.
This can be said about any jutsu that requires handseals in a fight. There are only two instances where a shinobi was interrupted while making seals, one was sasuke vs itachi while itachi was standing there while trying to make the many seals required for a fire jutsu, and mifune blocking hanzou and that was because mifune was known for his seal-blocking attack.
Gai was fighting kisame at his ideal terrain, whilst looking out for his team.
That doesn't say anything about kisame's or gai's speed.
7 gates gai has been noted to be extremely fast. Its true that i dont know how powerful the 8th gate is but from what we have seen from the 7th gate, its fair to assume that the 8th gate would no doubt be even more powerful.
Please show me the scan where 7-gated gai is noted to be extremely fast, or that anyone made any comments on his speed.
Sure 8th gate is more powerful than 7 gate, but 7 gate isn't that great. First, his strongest attack in 7th gate, is slow enough for kisame to have a conversation with himself, and lacks the power to knock out a kisame even when kisame takes it head on. And then there is the fact he can't stay in 7 for long, and once he is out is completely helpless.
No naruto clone has fought any of the kages in a 1 vs 1 sitatuion or madara. He has helped seal the kages though
Tsunade has never fought any kage in a 1 vs 1 situation.
Mei has never fought a kage in a 1 vs 1 situation.
Kakashi has never even fought a kage in a 1 vs 1 situation.
So none of the above are kage-level then.
Its all about feats. I don't know how much times you bring this up and how much times I have to repeat the same things over and over. A KM clone's feats put them at least at kage-level. A single KM clone has feats that put it above Base Naruto. Determining the abilities of an character is done by their feats and by its feats a single KM clone is Kage level.
Why do you even think dodai chose to save a BASE Naruto clone over anyone else in the army?