My take is he won a race that no-on else seemed to care about. Merckx won races that other racers wanted to win.
Yes. He's actually quite liked in the peloton. People think he's arrogant and that nobody wants to have anything to do with him, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, last week, in Burgos, you can actually hear Bennett shouting towards Chaves: "hey Esteban, slow down, Remco can't follow". Chaves immediately slows down, and as Evenepoel bridges, you can hear Chaves say "Sorry Eddy, i didn't notice you were dropped, you can ride away now". It's clear as day.
Same thing happened at San Sebastian. You can see Remco discussing something with Skuijns. People thought that this was some kind of squabble, but they were in fact just discussing where it would be most believable for Skuijns to get dropped. Also, the guys chasing, Valverde, Konrad, Carthy, Mollema, you can literally SEE them talking and telling each other not to go too fast because else they might catch Remco, and that San Sebastian is a race they don't care about at all.
You really don't have to be a good cyclist, just ask the guys before the race starts:
"Guys, can i please please please win today?"
And BAM, people call you the next Merckx.