Little: “It is not my place to assess them, nor to grade them in any ranking order.”
There seems to be a common misconception that we are unable to comparatively assess the level of various Gedolim. We can compare �levels� � in fact, we need to in order to judge who is an authority in the first place! If you can�t comapre levels then how are you to know that someoe is a godol? The fact that he is �accepted� as a godol only means that many people have judged his �level� to be that of a godol. But if you cannot compare levels, then these people have no right to accept him as a godol in the first place.
And the same common sense that tells you so-and-so stands out among his peers making him an authority, tells you that certain so-and-so�s stand out even more. Or less.
Part of knowing who to follow is to know who is greater. Godol mimenu b�chochma ubaminyan is an assessment that it legitimately made. And as Rav Shach writes � if you dont know who to follow, follow whoever is greater � and, he adds, you can of course tell who is greater. If you yourself dont know, then thats fine � not everyone can know the answer to all questions they encounter � but why in the world would you say nobody else can know?
And it�s an error in logic, too, because they themselves compared �levels� of other people! i.e.: �Rav Ovadia Yosef is the leading Sefardi posek of our times.� And how would they know this if you cannot compare him to other sefardi poskim? And how can one know whether �any of us are on the madreiga of assessing the �levels� of other people� unless you assessed the levels of all those other people who said arent �on the �madgreigah� to do that?
So clearly, we can compare �levels�, its just that to some, certain comparisons are �obvious� and others are not. Well, to other people, perhaps who are more knowledgable and skilled in assessing these kinds of values, other comparisons are also obvious.