How is it even possible to get 442 episodes?
One Piece has been going at 1 ep per week pretty much solidly since it's Animoo started. So at 44 episods per year they're actually behind a bit.
It was at around this point in the Manga that Oda said he was about half-way finished with the One Piece story.
Yeah, what constantly impresses me about Oda is that he either that he plans and foreshadows important plot points way ahead of time, or he is really good at faking it.
I understand Coby is coming back, for example. And how long before Usopp gets to Elbaf, do you think? Or Zoro beating Mihawk, that has been building up forever...
Oda never forgets.
Never.Apparantly he's had the core storyline done from start to finish from day 1 and has just had to flesh it out and actually mangaize it, although he has admitted it's taken longer than he originally expected it to as he's expanded the original story way beyond what he first visualized due to the unexpected popularity of the story.
There's also significant fan-theories about the fact that he deliberately brought back several minor characters from the past like Laboon as revenge for 4kids bastardizing his Animoo (4kids skipped the Laboon arc, which meant if they'd kept going when Brook turned up a bunch of American watchers would have been like "Wat") or, alternately, he does it just so he can sit there being smug while all his fans go HOLY SHIT.