Kakuzu will continue to remain strong even after a lot of other things have been added. He is versatile and a lot of the other things that can counter him, has lineups that will help mitigate his downsides (i.e. Minato bond barrier, run gaara skill trial. Run a edo itachi for a mirror and an awesome debuff)

Run whatever you want to, of course, being a slave to the meta isn't that fun in my opinion and gets old after a month for me. Granted, I still have groupmates that just continue with 6 paths naruto.

Only other suggestion I would have would be to get the breakthroughs of Kushina, Yagura, Minato, Deidera, or Killer Bee IF you have the ninjas recruited already. The Oasis system of 4 star breakthroughs is complete bull* and its not worth it to try and buy a ninja again just to start with their skill trials.

Kakuzu is the only exception. Future ninjas, Deidera [Akatsuki Inception] looks decent but don't look to CN that much for lineups or ninjas to get. Kabuto [Sage Mode] was supposed to be an uber OP ninja but he's complete garbage here.