Hiyori wasn't expecting that, she was caught off-guard. she might've taught that Ichigo would try and suppress his hollow since he is scared of it. the hollow came out and instantly attacked Hiyori. she was surprised and so were the other Vaizards. maybe because they felt Ichigo's true raw power.

Ishida's father compress his power into a smaller version, not too bulky, easier maneuvarability (i guess)

Ichigo probably has limitless raw power but he doesn't have the skill. he beats people by overpowering them with raw power rather than skills.

i think his power was fluctuating at that time was caused by his hollow trying to surface. when his hollow was near the surface, his power was tremendously high. but when Ichigo suppress the hollow, it dropped to 'trash' level.

of course Isshin knows Rukia is a shinigami. he knew Ichigo became one. he probably felt Rukia the 1st time she saw Ichigo.

he was just playing dumb, like he always is. he even knows when Kon is in Ichigo's body and stops calling him Ichigo.

yes he does, i think. if i remember correctly he was talking to Kisuke after killing Grand Fisher about the Vaizards and Hougyoku.

who is Kai?

yea. and it would've been hard to come out of a spirit-power-draining gigai, which Isshin was using. he probably had some help from Urahara to get out and save Kon.
he didn't do anything in the beginning probably because he knew Rukia was already there. he felt her power and thought she could handle it herself, and he might've predicted what will happen to Ichigo. he revealed himself to be a shinigami later on only to Kon, when he knew it was him and not Ichigo, and nobody else that didn't already know

HIchigo IS Zangetsu. only thing is, the hollow is the dominant one now hence he controls when Zangetsu appears.

the Vaizards aren't all that weak you know. Lisa is confident probably because she is powerful. Hinako was caught off guard by hollow Ichigo, she didn't expect the hollow to come out so soon and attack her instantly. Lisa is battle ready and wouldn't be caught off guard, unless he does something out of the ordinary.

but that limit seems limitless.

shinigami is the jap word for 'death god'

Aizen's status is still unknown, as are Gin's & Tousen's. the manga hasn't stated anything about them yet since they left Soul Society eg. whether they have undergone changes or become more powerful.

Ichigo did not lose to Aizen because of Aizen's hypnosis. he lost because Aizen was too powerful. proof: he stopped Ichigo's blade with his finger.

he will use hand combat, dodging the sword and jabbing at the hollow. lol

sorry to burst you bubble but there is
eg. Yoruichi, Soi Fong, Grimmjaw.......all fought with martial arts.. Hitsugaya's arrancar opponent can also be classified as using hand combat in a way.

but they still use hand combat. its still the same thing although at a totally different level. who says Ichigo can't use hand combat? he always 'train' with his dad.

stop with the spoiler tags. this manga thread was created to talk about the manga and everybody visiting this thread is assumed to have read the latest chapters, unless they want to read spoilers.

Hollow Ichigo was never good. he the opposite of Ichigo and is a hollow. we haven't seen any "good" hollows so far so we can assume they are all pure evil beings. Hollow Ichigo is merely blabbling about how Ichigo can improve. if Kishimoto didn't do this we wouldn't be seeing anymore Ichigo.
Ichigo saw Kenpachi in his subconcious mind probably because his hollow reminded him of Kenpachi. Ken had no reason to fight and fought just for the fun of it and to obtain more power. Hollow Ichigo was saying something along the lines of this, instinct is all thats needed to seek out a battle.

best guess would be that Isshin changed his name so nobody recognizes the name Kurosaki. and Ichigo doesn't bear any resemblence to Isshin, only to Kaien.

plus most of the captains are new ones (relatively) so they probably wouldn't know much about Isshin anyways.

training=reduce transformation time & extend transformed time.

Inoue has special powers. therefore she is the centre of attention now. or maybe the author suddenly got infatuated with her and cast her in the middle of everything.

i don't think he was demoted because he became weaker. losing a hand doesn't mean you become weaker. he never did use both hands all the time when fighting Ichigo. and he can wield a sword with just 1 hand. only thing is he is at a slight disadvantage, especially if his released form makes use of his arms as weapons or something like that. then he would be at a bigger advantage. imagine Hitsugaya's and the bald guy's arrancar opponents with only 1 arm. they would have had huge disadvantages even from the beginning.

Ganju's sister (can't recall name at the moment) only had 1 arm and she was feared in Rukongai. that means she was still powerful, even with only 1 arm.

no hollow is innocent. they turn evil when they turn into a hollow. this has been said and explained in the early parts of the manga....where Rukia drew ugly drawings to explain to Ichigo what are shinigamis, hollows and all those sort of things.

try Aizen's shikai/bankai. that one needs intelligence to fight against. even if somebody is strong, that person wouldn't be able to defeat perfect hypnosis with brute force.

plus Kenpachi wasn't even in release form. where did you people get that idea from? shape of his sword? its just broken from too much use without any care. its a normal chipped sword, no release.

Kenpachi beating Tousen isn't good enough proof of level of power. it was just that Tousen's bankai couldn't really work on Kenpachi, which was his 'weakness' and lead to his loss. if Ichigo fought Tousen, i would be pretty sure he'd lose (without hollow Ichigo intefering) reason being Ichigo can't take as many hits as Kenpachi nor can he fight as though he was uninjured after taking that many hits.

for all we know, Kenpahi could easily beat Byakuya even after seeing Ichigo, who beat Kenpachi, losing to Byakuya quite badly. (no he didn't win because hollow Ichigo does not count)