Great observations KD.

To answer where you've quoted me, Rocco and Neri were loyal soldiers/capos to Michael and Michael made Tom the Don during his absence. The fact is, we don't know how Tom ran the family while Michael was traveling around the US. I know we didn't have any on screen interactions between the 3 of them, but that doesn't mean things weren't happening off screen.

Either way, 50+ years later, we're debating about one specific scene, as Turnbull had mentioned: "The variety of them shows just how much nuance is contained in that brief scene." It is absolutely beautiful cinema.