I love Kirks guitaring. Love his creativity and he's played some great stuff in his time.
So i'd put him up their with the greats certainly

I woudln't however go to the lengths of saying he's better than any of the others mentioned...

I mean how can we judge this anyway.

Do we go on creativity?
Pure guitar skills?
Complexity?
Speed?
Passion?
Quality of songs?

I've always loved Metallica and a lot of the old guitar stuff that went along with them so it's easy for me to say that judging by any of the above I loved what Kirk did on his axe....
Maybe it could be edited to read,,, greatest guitar players and why they're so great?? That would help with the whole, no WAY is him better then him..!

Hendrix was marverlous also, I Santana was amazing, but yet I don't really like listening to him that much. Which has absolutely NOTHING to do with his guitar skills.... technically he may be 'greater' than others, but yeah... anyway you see what i'm getting at...

That guy that said Kirk was better than everyone hands down probably just f'n loved metallica, and he could probably hear another 100 great guitarists 1000 times over and still like listening to Metallica more,, so hence he would probably still say Kirk is the BEST guitarist ever.. I suppose in his opinion he'd be correct too becuase any day of the week he'd rather listen to him play guitar than anyone else...

okay i'll shut up now