Castellano was not a good boss. In addition to being greedy, he seldom left his mansion to mingle with his guys. He got involved in minutia that was below his status. He made deals with other families that his people resented. He openly cavorted with his housekeeper under the same roof where his wife and daughter lived--a big Mob no-no. Even bigger no-no: he failed to go to Neil's wake or funeral. But his biggest sin was his greed--in the Mob, always follow the money.
He would never have made Gotti underboss--like oil and water. Gotti belonged to Neil and his "blue collar" faction--antithetical to Castellano's "white-collar" preference (Sammy Da Bull dismissed him as a mere "racketeer," while he and Gotti were "gangsters."
Mr. Neil wouldn't have lasted long as Don, even if he weren't terminally ill with brain cancer. He had plenty of force, and was highly respecsted among his own men and in other families. But he wasn't that smart. One of the reasons Gambino didn't name him as his successor was that Mr. Neil was in prison on a five-year tax evasion rap--he lost more than $100k in a Puerto Rican casino while declaring annual taxable income of only $10k. He was already too visible--and too vulernable--with a variety of law enforcement agencies.
Wasn't Sammy part of the Castellano faction--the white collar branch of the Family--before Gotti and his people wooed him over? I just found you saying Sammy dismissed Paul as being merely a racketeer interesting, because Sammy seemed to be less of a "gangster" than Gotti was.
I see Gotti, Ruggerio and that crew as being throwbacks to the earlier days of Albert Anastasia--Muscle, an enforcer, a "thug". A killer. Whereas I see Sammy, DeCiccio and that lot as being guys who were smarter, savvier, knew how to keep a lower profile, etc, and who were involved in white collar rackets. Guys who might've represented the future of the Mafia. Yes, you'd always need bread and butter guys like Gotti to run hijackings and narcotics and shylocking and whatnot, but it just seems like Carlo was taking the Gambinos in the direction of having it be 50% blue collar crime and 50% white collar crime.
Paul and Gotti were indeed oil and water. Paul took the "white collar, legitimate businessman" stuff to an extreme, which got him killed. Because he forgot the importance of the street guys and underappreciated them, besides being greedy. He was a gangster who wanted to pretend he wasn't a gangster, who looked down on his soldiers and blue collar crime crews--Guys who were lining his pockets with cash. A guy who would've made a great CEO of a legit company, or a great Capo of a white collar crime crew.
But Gotti on the other hand took being a "gangster" to the extreme and was arrogant and overly smug. He didn't seem to have the intelligence or foresight for any long term goals or planning and just seemed to be a glorified hood in his mindset and the way he ran the Family. A guy who'd have been great as a Capo or soldier, but not Boss material--Couldn't see past the streets. This is a guy who wore $2000 suits but claimed to be a plumber. And he never shut up and he got life in prison as a result.
Guys like Sammy, Frank DeCiccio and others seem to be to have been bridges between the two worlds--Guys who recognized the meat and potatoes of La Cosa Nostra was and would always be the blue collar rackets but at the same time recognized how "safe" and lucrative white collar crimes could be, guys who could deal in murder and truck hijackings if need be, but also had tons of legitimate companies to make them appear legitimate and who had all the union deals and whatnot backing the blue collar money up.
To put it in Godfather terms, when Carlo died, the Family needed a Michael Corleone. In Paul, they instead got a Barzini, and in John Gotti, a Frank Pentangelli or Joey Zasa.
