But you presented absolutely no references of any value! Because we have very few of those. The chairman was weak because he was rusty (or old). He has said as much himself. But the fact he's planning to somehow deal with the king means he thinks he can shake off some of that rust and then compensate some with experience.
We never saw Kaito fight any really serious fights. My main argument against him is highly biased because I think his main technique, summoning the utterly stupid clown thing, made him far weaker than he needed to be. Yet he could fight against Pitou for a while so naturally he's stronger than Knov, who was missing his mommy before he even saw Pitou.
But yeah, I hate on a fundamental level the whole your aura is directly proportional to your battle prowess thinking, so I doubt we will ever see eye to eye. I prefer the delinquent measure of who's standing last is stronger.