Yeah I get what you're saying and at least you partly agree with me lol.
And I agreed with pretty much everything sinc you also agreed with me rofl, but I bolded the parts I wanted to respond to.
First was the Lee thing, which although true isn't really that relevant. Drunk Lee got hits in because he was unpredictable and drunk and all although the point is Lee literally couldn't enter gates whatsoever or push himself to actually try hard. When he did enter gates and only the FIRST for a short amount of time...
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If anything that was "his" form of Plot no Jutsu, if people think that Kimimaro's sickness was the reason he "lost" they should check back to Lee just recovering from surgery. Kishi basically flat out admits there if Lee could go all out(cough, creating earthquakes from just moving) then he would have stomped. Although if that happened Gaara would have been put out of a job rofl.
Next was the Gaara thing. Like I said crushing is different from attacks like Chidori. Sasuke punched Gaara's sand and all it did was crack his fist and it bled. Chidori tore right through it. Kimi can harden his bones to tank attacks,
especially pressure based so he was the perfect opponent, he's not taking a Chidori that much is pretty obvious to me IMO.
Plus, if worse comes to worse Naruto could easily outlast him since I can sure tell you if someone regenerates from being impaled through the right lung Kimimaro isn't really doing much. So Naruto just keeps on him until 1 of them dies from exhaustion, although it's not like it would come to that but Naruto obviously wins that endurance match.
And as for Healthy Kimimaro, I personally don't think he's any stronger when healthy, the only problem is he's dying from it, it doesn't make him weaker and nothing really suggests that. But it's nowhere near significant enough to place him above Naruto, Sasuke or Lee. And arguably Neji being the other 1 genin to beat Kimi at that time since he's kind of a bad matchup. I'm not sure if I'm forgetting someone specifically lol.
And lastly, yeah I know Itachi doesn't have the same techs and all that but I was pretty much debating Naruto, Sasuke, Lee vs Kimimaro in general. Itachi does have genjutsu though and whatnot.