No one has said that Sannin was their power, what’s being said is that their power granted them the name sannin/
No one said that the manga called them neo sannin, I referred to them as the new (neo means new) sannin because Hurizen acknowledged them as a newer version (new era) of sannin self consciouslyS
Bingo and they never stopped being kage tier.
so that just means there is a disconnect
like Micheal's scan post the title came by something else not being Kage tier
Hanzou was a Kage by the way
so even if in their prime they later were Kage tier it doesn't mean anything about their pupils overall default strength
plus Kage comes in multiple strength tiers but that is another thing for another day
they are they
and their students are their students
separate groups of people