Just destuction itself is nothing in terms of intimidating villain discussion.
Thing that Freeza was destroyed by Trunks means nothing to his character.
Trunks comes from the future and he was SSJ. His existance became reality only thanks to the fact that Freeza was defeated in his arc. So this is not a discussion about power lvl.
Plus Freeza with android parts was much weaker then his full power version.
The fact that he is a better character doesn't matter here when he is weak compared to Cell, let me put it another way:
Cell kills Frieza instantly, and I would feel more intimidated by the Cell that killed Frieza than by the dead Frieza.
Honestly, knowing that there's a monster out there capable of killing Frieza instantly would terrify me more, regardless of whether Frieza is a better character than Cell.
Everything that Frieza has built and achieved is collected by Cell, Cell's feat in killing Frieza only shows that Cell would easily be able to achieve the same as Frieza. Frieza being a better character doesn't matter much when the point is about intimidation which is intertwined with power level.
Now if you want someone more intimidating than Cell, Majin Boo is 1000x more.