For 1. I’m talking about how they scale relative to each other
For characters like the Admirals they have fruits to bridge the gap. It’s hard to put Gaban in the same tier as the other old legends if they’re all fruitless (except Sengoku I guess) and they have ACoC while he doesn’t
He’s clearly supposed to be strong even in old age but we can’t really put him in a specific tier yet. I’m still leaning towards low top tier but he could be an inbetweener
2. Rayleigh got tired pretty quickly against Kizaru. In a drawn out fight I don’t really see how Rayleigh would win. Not saying he would swift diff him or anything but he would lose eventually
For 1, Gaban may not have CoC, but it doesn’t change his hype and portrayal which put him alongside Rayleigh in his prime. Gaban has the ability to create whirlpools as well which means he has powers beyond just his haki, which Rayleigh just doesn’t.
2. I put it in comparable, I’m not saying Kizaru would lose, but kizarus not winning with less than extreme diff.