Right; costly and completely unnecessary, when Sand's genin, including one of Sand most physically powerful ninja, have already shown their willingness to help out Leaf over what was supposedly Sand's new ally, Sound. The setup right now seems to keep final power in unreliable hands (but acceptable ones, in that Gaara is a Sand nin and it can be argued that he's the most powerful ninja in the village), while at the same time, helping Sand get over some of its issues [by making it or persuading it to adopt some of Leaf's policies]. Yeah, man. Ninja politics are right up there with ninja science in fun things to talk about. :D (Maybe. I'm sure we'll get more of an idea of what their relationship is in the next few chapters, with Akatsuki targetting Gaara.)

That's true! But he still has a long way to go; look at the bit before Kakashi's side story when Sakura tells him to wait a bit, and they could get Sasuke together, and he thinks: No, I doubt you'll be able to, so maybe I'll just do it on my own first. (That's true. The boy is crippled, and needs the Itachi situation to come to some resolution before he'll be able to move on from it. However, if Gaara can come out sort of on this side of reason, and realise that he doesn't have to kill Lee, etc., you'd think it'd be possible for Sasuke to heal, too. I mean, at least he's had people he could trust and people he loved and people who loved him, who aren't afraid of him.)

(Yeah. But we already knew how kickass Temari is! :/ Dude. I thought that fight with Shikamaru was the worst fight ever, because she lost, but she didn't even get to lose.)