For now Kaidou still gets the benefit of being at the top lvl of mid gen, but remember that Kizaru said this while making light work of Luffy.
Oda specifically made Kizaru name drop Kaidou while Luffy was at his mercy. It shows how Kaidou is not held to a higher standard than your avg top tier in his eyes.
So it's not
completely hopeless for mid gen. Kizaru and Kuzan are closely linked to Akainu in PL, Mihawk is linked to Shanks. Kaidou's biggest sin is Base Luffy was competitive with him, which already didn't age well against Kizaru, and that he is most closely linked to Big Mom out of all top tiers. Idk about showing a new lvl though, but yea Kaidou will not go down as the definitive strongest of that era, that's not how he is treated by his peers.