User blog comment:Tinni/Ichigo/@comment-1243139-20091123175807

That's completely true, in terms of strength yes Ichigo is quite powerful easily ranking as a high level captain however in no way is he the most powerful character out and i'm not sure that Tite would want to do that there as for the espada they seemed worthless because of how quickly they were defeated that was simply because of a bad match up, examples: Uryuu against iceringer, Mayuri against Szayel etc, and why because one ran out of projectiles and the other studied his opponent thoroughly before hand which in my book seems like cheating.

Ichigo against Aizen, just because he most likely has reiatsu at the same level as that arrogant pestilence as well as an advanced hollow mask does not necessarily mean he could win, he barely won against Byakuya and his inner hollow injured him pretty badly.