The problem is that playing guitar is not an olympic sport. So much is style, sound, genre', writing and always the guy that blazed the trail and did it first. Eddie is certainly in that realm. (as would be Jimi.) He created the room for all of the 80's and early 90's guitarists and guitar based pop/rock/hair metal. I would think that Paul Gilbert is much more refined and technical than Eddie, and can play more types of music to perfection. The best sound on a guitar is Andy Timmons. And what a player he is. You are not going to find anyone that uses odd full chords to perfection as good as he does. When you get to the likes of Vai, it is hard to say that anyone on the planet plays the instrument more like it is an extension of his actual body. When you get to finger picking, Chet and Doyle Dykes are the men! Hard to beat the blues of Albert and BB. Slow hand ain't bad. In recent releases, no one is churning out more tracks pleasing to the ears on guitar than George Lynch. Hard to find someone that plays with the feel of the groove more than a Nuno Bettencourt. The technical players like Chris Broderick of Megadeth and Petrucci of Dream Theater are blowing our minds with new territories in playing.
I think for Eddie to be back in the current discussion he needs to get back to basics and write some mindblowing stuff like he was from 1975 till Cherone left.