It has nothing to do with preference. That's why I listened a wide variety of players who have completely different styles and applications. See, my definition of technique in a football context is balance and motoric ability with a football. And the players I mentioned simply have a different quality on the ball then Cristiano.
Consider somebody like Isco for example. He's always in perfect control of his body and center of gravity and at the same time he hits the ball incredibly cleanly with every touch. There's never a sign of the ball "controlling him" in the sense that he has to do "correction touches" because he hit it a little bit too much with the inside or outside of the foot while dribbling or got the angle/length of the touch wrong. And at the same time, he is capable of technically completely outrageous things that even Ronaldinho would be proud of at times. And those touches don't seem to be learned "by heart" like Cristiano's footworks in empty space during his showboateing days but they're natural to him as evidenced by the quality of his touches. Iniesta is completely different stylewise but he all of the aforementioned have this cleanness and absolute control of their touches at perfect balance in common. And that feeling of how to "manipulate" a football often reflects in the passing technique as well - how to bend it, how to flick it, etc. As good as Cristiano was, he never had that to the same extent. A great player but not as insanely talented with a football.
And by the way, that doesn't mean that he's not a better dribbler. Dribbling I think has much more to do with anticipation, decision making, situational and spacial awareness, etc. and Cristiano absolutely excels in these areas. I disagree for instance with
@GifLord that he just ran past defenders. He could beat multiple players in tight spaces as well and he knew very well when and where to dribble. It's just that his technique wasn't at an all time great level. Similar to how somebody like Dembele is a far better dribbler than, say, Bernardo Silva, although Silva has a technique Dembele can only dream of.
