IMO it depends which facets of the game we're talking about.
Dueling? I only killed Skyyr once in the duels I flew against him, I shot down Grizz and Kappa a lot more than that when I was in AOM dueling against them. Drex I never dueled, but I did shoot down in the MA quite a bit waaaay back when he played.
In game MA - Fester/Citabria has to be right up there near or at #1 in anyone's book, look at what he did there, accomplished every single objective when HTC brought them in on top of maintaining #1 in Fighters/whatever at will.
I was looking at Skyyr as the goat in terms of combining his win/loss record in duels (nobody beat him that I know of, he always won more than he lost against every opponent unless someone wants to speak up otherwise), plus dominating the MA as well, using his frowned upon methods or not.
Just my opinion based on fighting all concerned, it matters not at all.
Well I beat him... and so have a few others like Joachim and Krupnski, who are some of the best duelers I've ever seen. They just didn't post their videos because they have respect, unlike Skyyr. Many fights like Batfink for example were not true contested duels, so it's just lousy to claim superiority over pilots when it wasn't a true contest, but merely dueling how we use to back in the day. When Skyyr posted our first "duel" at 2am on a Friday night trying to take that as a serious duel, I knew he was full of chit.
I never had the opportunity to face Drex, Levy, or Fester 1v1. Too bad really. I heard Fester was pretty damn crazy.
There are simply so many sticks and everyone has their own FPH. Remember back in the day there was much more skilled pilots and squads, so a lot of things were different.
But yes, there are many ways to look at MA Fighters. Their plane choice, their flying style, the way they act, and their statistical measurement in #s.
Too me, landing matters, and so does plane choice. IMO, it's pretty easy to dominate the arena in a super fast last war plane with great cannons and get lots of kills over 8 hours a day playing and he still died quite a bit. Any good stick can do it by playing less aggressive and smart. Hell, I went 125-0 in a Temp one tour just to prove it and Kruel lost his bet, but was respectful enough to own it. I'm kinda meh about using the best BnZ planes as a crutch and then being labeled as the goat when you die that much. Just sayin...
I still think you have to factor in SEA events as well, like FSO, CC, and scenarios because that's where it really counts in even planes without being able to use positional awareness over the opponent. Since we never saw Skyyr post any #s there, that's an unchecked box in skill box for me.