Hehe, if anything it did the opposite of a character purge. There will be even more pirates now that Whitebeard went and said what he said. I don't have any trouble keeping up with everyone, so it doesn't really bother me. And the events of the war changed the condition of the whole world. To have the most powerful and feared man in the world all of a sudden be dead is going to lead to a significant power shift as well as a sizable bit of chaos I would guess, which will be interesting to see.