Zoro will be a top tier when Oda is comfortable with having him fight one.
The same thing happened when most people thought Zoro would be too strong for a YC1 after the rooftop and then proceeded to get bodied by one. Never forget it was Zoro fans shitting on King for an entire year thinking that YC1 were beneath Zoro.
Isolated aura farming is cool, stat sheets are cool, but going up 1v1 against one is an entirely different ballgame.
Couple things:
1) What makes you think Oda is uncomfortable with having Zoro fight a top-tier? He was more than happy to let pre-power up Zoro overwhelm Kaido, a high top-tier. He's even happy to let Zoro have an equal clash of ACoC with another high top-tier, Venus. What opportunity has Zoro had to have an extended fight with a top-tier since Wano?
On Egghead, Oda was happy to let Dorry and Brogy fight top-tiers let alone Zoro, so comfortability wasn't the issue there. Oda using Lucci as a lazy stalling mechanism for Zoro is actually evidence towards Zoro being a decent fight for a top-tier, as Oda used Lucci to keep Zoro away from Luffy, Kizaru and Saturn so that Vegapunk could die. The second this plot point had passed and stall piece was over, it was revealed that Zoro could've low-diffed Lucci anytime he wanted. Lazy writing but evidence that Zoro treats YC1s like Shanks treated Kid.
2) The top-tier is a
tier, not a level. There are multiple levels within the top-tier. RT Zoro may have been getting ragdolled by King, but he was still YC1 and of the same level, despite never facing a YC1 before. His feats were enough for us to conclude he was above most YC1s despite a distinct lack of feats against YC1s.
Similarly, Zoro can still be on the same level as a top-tier despite not having an extended fight with one before. Particularly the weaker top-tiers such as the old legends. Now that Zoro has control over his ACoC, what's putting an entire level difference between him and say Gaban? Particularly when you consider that KOH Zoro should logically be a full fledged top-tier as he's using Oden levels of haki, and now his base is looking clean as well.
Zoro's essentially the best of both worlds between two of the strongest Inbetweeners, Law (AP) and Yamato (ACoC/CQC) rn, combining their best attributes stated in brackets to be eligible for top-tier consideration. If Law had Yamato's ACoC/CQC or Yamato had Law's AP, they'd both be at least low top-tiers. That is literally Zoro.