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Actually, Peter goes off the scene in chapter 12 and Paul is the center of the expansion of the church from then. After his last letter to Timothy Paul is martyred, but we know what Paul did from his letters. We don't know from the scriptures, even Peter's letters, the extent of his ministry, but one would think, if he held such a high place in the church as "ultimate earthly authority" this "highest authority here on earth in the flesh", there would be some mention of it in the scriptures. Instead, what we get is just another Apostle with all his successes and failures and submissive to James and the church at Jerusalem.

The papacy did not just leap into existence any more than the New Testament, and that institution is not identically the same as Peter. "Just another Apostle" is certainly not the description of Peter in the New Testament.
I mean, how much ink does Apollo get? How much the other eleven, or James? There are only a few vivid personalities in the Christian canon apart from Jesus: Peter and Paul are certainly the two most vivid, and if we take Luke and Acts, as two parts of the same book, Peter is on stage longer. Furthermore if we consider Matthew 16, we see him clothed with a special status, a status echoed in the other three Gospels, even John, who (reluctantly) gave into to the Patrine camp in the Church. By the time that john was written, both Peter and Paul were long dead, but not even a hint of Paul is given. Given the fragmentary nature of the picture of the early Church that we have, we have no right to dismiss the tradition of the Church since it supplies some of missing parts about those about which it is silent. Is it necessary to retrograde the monarchical episcopacy of the bishop of Rome and picture him with miter and crosier to prove the legitimacy of the papacy? I say, no, not given what Matthew and John say about Peter's commission. From that mustard seed, a tree has grown.