Cracker and Smoothie were always around King and Queen
People are fooled by Calamities huge bounties.
Cracker doesn't need luck to match or beat pre fs g4 luffy while Jack needs luck to survive vs sulong inu as Pero does
Queen can't even dominate or beat base Sanji yet
Oda has been clear :
Perospero is top yc level around Jack, tho inferior but the gap is small
Both feueded minks
Perospero was about to finish neko while Jack wasn't planning to attack Inu, just talking and huffing badly
Jack is Cracker and Smoothie level. Don't downplay the calamities' strength now because Jack was defeated. The alliance members are just growing stronger during the war. Inu and Neku both gained haki strong enough to cut Kaido, they adapted Oden's style to their style and they are in sulong mode.
Jack performance in the war was more impressive than anything we saw from Cracker or Smoothie. Stop overrating G2/G3 Luffy. He was veteran level in those modes, back then. Luffy was prepared to use G4 against Ulti.
The manga has made it clear there's a gap between Jack and Queen/King. Those two aren't on the same level either.
Queen is barely doing anythiny. He's still just shooting his lasers. Even Chopper evaded his laser attack. Even though Sanji is clearly much stronger now than he was during WCI he still haven't cause any significant damage to Queen and only hit him while he was distracted.
Perospero has proven he is YC level but still weaker than Jack. He has done nothing compared to Jack. He fought and defeated too sulong minks and then spent most of his time shooting his candy arrows at samurais in the live floor. While Jack led they charge against the entire minks army. He defeated most of the minks, who were in sulong mode, by himself. Jack then fought sulong Inu and sulong Neko in a 2v1 battle.