User blog comment:Salubri/New Characters and Reveals in the Future of Bleach/@comment-1268838-20100828172555/@comment-1268838-20100831160841

You're right about war being a bad time to select new captains, but what about after? Once this whole war is over and done with, the Gotei 13 will be down to ten captains, nine if Hadou 96 literally made Yamamoto explode as was implied. Naturally, as you said, Soul Society is going to have to fill those spots in somehow. The candidates would of course, have to have the necessary leadership skills, experience, and of course, a Bankai. As Byakuya said, it's hard enough to attain Bankai, but how many people can possibly meet the other two requirements? My guess is very few - we've seen at least the top three seats for several of the divisions, and it's evident that none of them fit the bill. Hence, the chances of there being Shinigami that meet those requirements that we haven't seen yet are very low. In which case, those positions would either remain empty, or they would be filled in as best as possible. Either way, I have my doubts that Kubo will take the story that far, though it's perfectly possible.