The JNAF, in 1943, was more than capable of sinking American shipping without throwing away aircraft. What you did have in early 1943 was a lack of ways for either side to really get at the other. The IJN was training up replacement pilots (and subsequently feeding them into the meatgrinder of the Solomons) and the USN was gathering up new decks and aircraft.
It sometimes isn't fully understood that before mid-1944 the Japanese navy believed that it could still win the war. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the first major carrier engagement since Santa Cruz Islands and none of the players really understood exactly how far the scales had tipped. The U.S had an inkling, thanks to the successes in the South Pacific against land based airpower, but a major fight in the open sea was a different matter. By the time the Turkey Shoot was over both sides knew who far things had moved, that the U.S. had developed what was close to an insurmountable technical and tactical advantage, with a similar advantage in pilot quality.
The kamakazi was an act of despair, not a war winning tactic. It was an act of defiance, the last strike from the grave of a defeated military. To view it as anything else, or to imagine that it would have been adopted before all was lost ignores the reality of the kamakazi.