Yeah I've been irritated with Usopp for a long time every time he pussied out made me
But in reality I'd be scared like him too, I think him and Nami are characters for the audience to relate to. Usopp wants to be like his pops and brave the seas and shyt but you got him facing against overpowered demonic nikkas. He's a funny dude for real and while he's weak he does contribute, like when he defeated one of Arlong's henchmen (even tho he was running for most of the fight), to making up Luffy's Jolly Roger, using dials to save the ship from it's free fall, and one that made me
him was the part where he helped out Nami, she's just about as much a burden when it comes to fights and he constructed a weapon to help her defend herself (girl would have been swiss cheese if she didn't have the clima-tact to use against that porcupine hoe)
About his fight with Luffy at first I was
at all the new shyt he was pulling out against Luffy but then I assumed he bought and prepared all that when he went back into the city before the fight. Early episodes do show that Usopp experimented making bombs, tricky strategies and other shyt.
I get the feeling that's not the last of him though. Coby was a bytch ass nikka too for his intro but now him and Helmeppo are being groomed to badasses. Or maybe Usopp just packs his shyt and goes home since he can't fix the ship