Prime Linlin is as more defendable position actually
Fools are now saying 39 yo Roger with decades of experience as a pirate captain was still far from his prime, just because they can't cope with him having so many equals
I suspect it's mostly Luffy fans that are insecure about the possibility Luffy might not be able to low diff his crew or his rivals EOS
That's kind of the story too lol. Luffy fans gatekeeping.
But to be really fair to Roger, this is classic Oda making other characters get easy hype by comparing them to Roger, without putting in much effort. As fans like to put it nowadays, "leech".
Because Roger
is one of the strongest, and owned an era lasting almost 20 years. He is a massive benchmark.
Make no mistake, there are only two character who were truly Roger's rivals in strength - prime Whitebeard and prime Garp. (With Rocks, standing above all of them, even if slightly, as the strongest character in modern OP verse)
Others like Shiki, prime Ray, Sengoku; while they get comparisons and statement to Roger, are not treated the same way.
However, there is a reason why Roger and Whitebeard were used to hype up Rayleigh. There is a reason why Rayleigh is getting used to hype up Gaban. And there is a reason why the "shoulders to shoulders" statement exist for Roger/Ray/Gaban.
Oda is spoonfeeding the readers that the gap between these characters isn't big. That's really just it.
Somehow Garp mentioning Rayleigh alongside Whitebeard as someone marines wouldn't want to take on simultaneously, didn't make it clear to these dudes (even tho the only context for mentioning this here is strength of the individuals). Or Shiki destroying half of Marineford as collateral in a 1v2 against prime Garp/Sengoku.
Lots of agenda reasons if we're being honest. Yonko fans wanted to gatekeep Rayleigh and Shiki. Luffy fans also wanted the same for obvious reasons, and at that time had support of Sanji fans (until they jumped ship the moment Gaban happened in Elbaph lol).
But at this point in time, it has become undeniable.