I can totally understand the story preference for 2 and 4 (especially 4) over 3. MGS 3 is sort of a slow burn story that pays off in the end in spades where as 2 and 4 are full of wacky Kojima story ideas throughout. Portable Ops just didn't do it for me, I hated the controls (they made it better with Peacewalker by allowing some other control schemes that somewhat made up for the awful analog stick) . Peacewalker's story was so good, as it directly ties everything together with first Metal Gear game. I imagine most people didn't play the first game on either MSX or NES, but I played it dozens of times as a kid so the story hit extra hard.