You have a higher opinion of Kerfoot than I do. It's not so much a dislike for Kerfoot, I just sort of peg him as $2.5 million player and the Leafs, due to their salary structure, don't have the luxury of overpaying for a player like him.
I think Savard would have improved the Leafs and made them a better team than with Kerfoot in the lineup.
That being said, Savard had a bigger cap hit than Kerfoot so perhaps the real reason the trade hit a snag was because there was an expectation for Columbus to even out the dollars.
It's odd, though, that Columbus would have even entertained the deal. Last off-season the Jackets had Dubois/Domi/Koivu/Nash up the middle. Wouldn't Kerfoot be rather redundant with Mikko Koivu there? To give up a key defensemen to *not* fill a void seems odd.