Do you have a good example?
Because i didn´t see him tanking this:
or this:
http://i.imgur.com/CdwT0os.jpg
His movement alone when he activate the gates, affected the whole area:
http://i.imgur.com/aScg9l6.jpg
His punches against Gaara create shockwaves
+
http://i.imgur.com/x1bxC9Q.jpg +
http://i.imgur.com/TFoBtO4.jpg
You also see a lot of speedfeats in this fight. Neither the shinobi nor Gaara his Sand could follow Lee his speed.
Most of them can´t even see Lee
Here is a good respect thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/3b4m8c/respect_rock_lee_naruto/
If we going with PTS Lee vs PTS Sanji, i didn´t see Sanji neither in Terms of speed, nor in terms of power on the level with Lee. He get´s some good feats later against the CP9, and in the Thriller Bark, but i didn´t see him here as the winner.
Even Lee without his Gates could be a problem for Sanji, since Lee is still too fast. Fast enough to blitz Gaara even with his automatically sand defense.
But ok, if we going with current Sanji, then i think he wins against Lee.
And that, even Sasuke has trouble to follow Haku in his ice mirror jutsu before. Lee is far faster then Haku in his Ice Mirror Jutsu. FTE is no big deal for Naruto characters, it is a 0815 speed, thanks to abilities like the Shunshin no Jutsu. That´s why im saying before that Naruto characters have on average a better speed then OP characters (Of course, there are exceptions)
The current Sanji, yes.