Well, that's a great thread. I read most of the posts today and I wanted to share opinion about some of the discussions.
First, in the first few pages how much Valverde's minor wins and podiums should count? I remember something around 2018 that he'd swap most, if not all of his WC podiums for one win. Would Poulidor swap his podiums for Thomas' Tour win? Would Thomas do the same? Answers are clear. When you compare greatness (biggest) wins are what really matters. While smaller wins and podiums should count as well, they should be used to mostly split two close contenders.
Regarding "disrespecting" sprinters and throwing them out of top 100 because "they do nothing for 99% of the stage..", maybe we could apply the same logic for Rog, Valverder, Purito and take half of their wins because they don't do much for most of the stage and just outperform/outsprint their opponents it the last few hundred meters/kilometer? Granted, usually on a climb, but still...
And last about Cipo/Cav truckloads of stage wins and how they compare in the grand scale to riders like Fignon and LeMond.. I'm too young to have watched both of them and I didn't really dig how races really unfolded back in the days, but taking as example Pog this year, he could have won 5 or 6 stages had he, his team or the other teams cared enough to chase breaks the way sprinter teams do.. Rog could have 8 stage wins in this Vuelta...for the same reason.
For that reason alone I don't see reason to put much emphasis on sprint stage wins and how they compare to GT win. GT win requires you to sacrifice stages, heck even Thomas would've won the TT in his Tour and probably one or 2 stages..
Not sure how well I explained my point though.