sorry to bring up an old post Lol.. but my take is that Paulie was never underboss to begin with. Tony's crew wasn't part of the 5 families in NY. He had a very small family with estimated of 50-60 made men. Tony didn't need an underboss at the time because of how small of a crew they were and also that might have just caused a problem for him. He probably just made all the capos earn for a period of time so he can decide who his underboss would be. and according to Phil, Tony's crew didn't follow all of the "rituals" of La Cosa Nostra.
and also, a street boss is the same thing as an acting boss. usually if the big guys is locked and has the street boss carry out his work.
That's an inherent problem with ensemble casts for TV - there's only so much time to focus on the core. You don't have the time nor the resources to draw out an elaborate organization, even if the DiMeos were a 50-60 made member family.
You see the same thing in police procedurals. A show may focus on seven to eight characters, when in real life, the same organization has several times more staff.
