Regarding your final statement: see Buckethead... Absolute virtuoso that has played on hundreds of albums. Most of his solo stuff is just wanky self indulgent noodling - Unlistenable

Soothsayer... Yes... Awesome... But also sterile and lame.

It's all subjective. Just poking a little fun.

I think Marty is superior to Alexi from a technical standpoint but Alexi is by far the better songwriter while also being able to sing while playing leads.

I think that probably the best overall guitar player of the same era is Jeff Loomis: https://youtu.be/id3_l_tqArY

Most underrated probably goes to Vogg: https://youtu.be/HHPGGMjHapw (he cites Limp Bizkit as an inspiration lmao)

one of the traps many virtuoso musicians fall in is to create demonstration pieces for their skill that are entirely bewildering or boring to the casual listener

I really like that and I think that is primarily what separates the good from the best. There are hyped guitarists that don't even make music in my opinion (Tim Henson for example)

The best guitarists to me are those that inspire others to play guitar. That's my most important criteria (and Tim Henson is doing that so what do I know)

I never got into Marty UNTIL I was already into guitar. I was already a Megadeth listener and I never appreciated Marty until I learned to play guitar

The top 5 responsible for me picking up the instrument were Alexi Laiho, Townes Van Zandt, Abbath, Jon Nödtveidt, and Don Anderson I would say. Those are examples who I knew were amazing at guitar when I didn't know anything about music yet