I was firmly in the Ronaldo camp up until 2015 mainly because he was a former Man utd player till 2009 but even then (including the time he was at United) I always knew but never openly admitted that Messi was the better footballer and easily so.
At his peak Ronaldo was good at quite a few things like powerful long distance goals, lightning counters, amazing heading and was a decent dribbler but Messi has always been a genius with a different level of allround game.
Post 2015 and viewing their career as a whole, I actually won’t disagree with what you’ve said here. It’s just their very peak period we are appreciating things differently viewing from different angle, so we could never really agree on that bit.
While Messi has always been more talented at everything in traditional/conventional sense - goalscoring, dribbling, passing, playmaking etc all at the highest level, which are the epitome of what we always define as best footballer. So naturally people will always view him as better player, which is fair. I mean, afterall he has the gift of dribbling half of the team and score a beautiful solo, and at the same time matches the numbers of greatest goalscorer in the game, so it’s impossible to argue against him isn’t the best, as he really is.
But Ronaldo at his peak, is quite different. Rarely have we ever seen a winger being so dominant in the game taking up central role in both initiating attack play from the wing/deep as well as finishing up the attack move, while also having so many weapons in his pocket. I understand in todays game there are quite a few of similar type/style of wing forwards who are adopting similar approach but perhaps in lesser degree of dominance/all roundness - ie Mbappe, Salah, Vinicius Junior, Rashford, Leao etc But before Ronaldo, this type of winger/wing forward play is almost non-existence and Ronaldo is clearly one of the kind as the pioneer in the game and the best yet. Hence I always view them as equal during those earlier period. And of course with their stats being mostly identical, even helps further solidify the comparison.