3 true Sweet Commanders. The 4th one was a failure who proved himself unworthy of the rank.
With this logic, does that mean that Crocodile, Moriah and Doflamingo were not “true” Warlords because they got defeated and the World Government subsequently decided to strip them all of their Warlord status, no?
Snack earned that rank to begin with. Then he got punished for failure like everyone in the BMPs gets punished for failure in general. No special case here.
MJV got clear portrayal above the other DCs.
The 16 Division Commanders canonically all have the equal authority regardless of strength. Same with the Sweet Commanders, same with the All Stars etc. etc.
No amount of fandom perceived concepts that Oda never takes any notice of is going to change that.
On side note, yeah, the top three strongest subordinate characters in a crew will always have superior portrayal over everyone else in a crew.
Just like the top five strongest subordinate characters in a crew will always have superior portrayal over everyone else in a crew.
Or the top ten strongest subordinate characters.
Or the top fifteen or the top twenty and etc. etc. etc. etc.
There is always going to be a first, second and third strongest subordinate character for as long as there are three or more than three subordinate characters to begin with. Lel.
Beckman/Roo/Yasopp got clear portrayal above other RHP
Those three are literally the only named members of Shanks’ crew besides new recruit Rockstar and Shanks himself. We know nothing about them. They may not even have a rank authority based system to begin with, just like Roger never bothered with such a thing.
Both the
YC1/2/3/4 ranking system and the term
Monster Trio are purely fandom perceived concepts.
For as long as the fandom as a whole perceives and uses the term
Monster Trio to mean Luffy, Zoro, Sanji then that is essentially what it means regardless of how much you yourself desire to change a fan term that has been in use for years to fit with your perception of it.