I agree that people shouldn't jump to conclusions about battle strength but damn man, you are just as bad as the rest of the lot saying Sasuke
or Naruto is stronger. Firstly, for a manga that has been based 75% on Naruto and his goals and 25% on his rivalry with Sasuke it would make little sense to end the manga with Sasuke being stronger. Ugh, for a manga that so explicitly portrays Naruto and Sasuke as yin/yang, rivals, Indra/Asura and
EQUALS, there sure is a lot of senseless argument by which who is stronger. IMO they will remain equal in terms of battle power for the entire manga because with the information given, it's the most logical assumption to make. You can argue who is better all you like about subjective/opinionated things separate from battle strength like, "Who's wife is better?" or "Who's the better father?" or maybe even "Who is the better character?" but really, who the **** cares? It's only opinion anyway.
You said it best yourself:
I'm gonna say this one time and one time only....
....LET THE MANGA DEFINE ITSELF!
Expect wait a minute... IT ALREADY HAS!
By theory Naruto should be able to master nearly every jutsu in Konoha aswell as other jutsu on top of that. But for the sake of plot he doesn't. Naruto should be able to use his clones to do the paperwork as well, while the real him chills with the family but he also doesn't do that (You guessed it, for plot). Also, Sasuke should have way more jutsu as you know how early in the manga the Sharingan was always revered as being able to replicate/copy jutsu? Eg. Kakashi and his supposed 1000 copied jutsu (never shown, also for the sake of plot). The Uchiha blood and his Sharingan run so strongly through Sasuke yet he was never explicitly shown copying other's jutsu past Lion's barrage. Kishi veered away from that theme of Sharingan as a copy eye because it made it way too OP than it already was.
Edit:
Hokage can be weak. Look at Kakashi and Tsunade.. Weak
What's your point? It's well established that Naruto is by far the strongest Hokage so what purpose does it serve comparing Kakashi and Tsunade to him? lol.