We just gonna act like Ichiji back then was seen that much stronger than his brothers?
He wasn't portrayed as ANYTHING to his brothers. Back then, I could have said Ichiji is just as strong as the other Vinsmokes, you could have said he was weaker, and Love Cook could have said he was stronger, and all of us would have an equal amount of proof behind those statements: Nothing.
Ichiji is part of the Vinsmoke family, so he should have been either around Sanji's level or weaker, considering we got a little scuffle with Sanji and Judge, and Sanji pretty much held his own, while being completely dominated by Vergo and Doffy.
This makes absolutely no sense. Unless a sweeping statement is made about a group, such as the statement about the strength of Admirals and Yonko, then that group doesn't share hype and portrayal that only occurs on an individual level.
By this logic, every member of the Monkey family is as weak as Luffy as at any given point in the story. Doflamingo's strength is reflected by Lao G because they're in the same Donquixote Family group. Usopp reflects Luffy's strength. Crocodile reflects the strength of any other Shichibukai, including Mihawk. Blueno reflects all members of CP9. Nothing about this logic worked when Bogard used it, and it doesn't work now.
The best hype we got from Ichiji was that he was the eldest son of the notorious Vinsmokes, but that isn't even ability hype
Precisely. Ichiji's abilities were never portrayed prior to him being defeated by Katakuri.
and Bege hyping up Katakuri because of his observation haki and realizing that he might mess up their entire operation to take out BM
Even this isn't hype the way you're phrasing it. This hype of "most dangerous" was given to Katakuri because he had an ability that was specifically threatening to this specific style of planning. Katakuri was the most dangerous because the entire plan revolved around the element of surprise and Katakuri can see the future, ruining that element.
If Big Mom vs the alliance was Bege picking up a Den Den Mushi and going "Yo, we're coming to Whole Cake at 4:00 tomorrow and we're waging war," Katakuri wouldn't have received that hype.
was likely stronger than Ichiji and Sanji back then.
I never denied this. I denied saying this as though it were 100% and the only scenario that could happen when nothing at the time actually indicated that.
This entire argument on yours' end has been "A is true because of B," when B didn't prove A at all. Just because A ended up being true after all doesn't mean you weren't still wrong about that connection.