In the late 40s, was there a mafia family in New York that was setup for success the way the Corleone’s were when Michael had taken over? Of course we didn’t see an individual boss or a crime family blossom into what Michael and the Corleone family became in Godfather 3, but I would guess that there were some bosses and families that were on that trajectory.
I believe in creating the Corleones Puzo combined Costello's power and influence with the father/son dynamic of the Bonannos. So, the Luciano family was certainly set up for such a transition in terms of money and power, however, neither Lucky or Frank intended to pass leadership off to a blood relative. That has Bonanno written all over it. Didn't the Bonannos also have a lot of power in the 1940s? I just doubt the kind of power that Costello had with his connections to judges and what not.
