First i would like to clarify something. Some people seem to be unable to catch nuance in the criticism. Saying that Player A is not the best in one field does not imply that he is bad at it. Someone can be very good at something but still fall short to the very best in that domain. Saying that Ronaldo does not have the close control of Iniesta or Zidane is not a knock against him ! Those guys are just literally GOAT Tier in that category and he falls short from them. He is still a very good dribbler with one of the nicest close control for players of his height.
To clear all misconceptions i think very highly of him. I consider that he is comfortably one of the 10 greatest player to have evr graced the beautiful game. I cannot rank him or any other player (bar the top3) in said top 10 because i believe that football is a sport where we lack objective elements to judge past players, unlike a sport like Basketball which provides tons of Footage and Data. And as we lack advanced Data of footballers pre 2010 it is basically impossible to confidently rank said players.
Anyway, back to our subject. I think a lot of the points brought up in your post do not stand the test of scrutiny. I shall address them one by one.
"Ronaldo in his younger years was very hard to stop. He gave most defenders a torrid time because his dribbling style was very unpredictable. The constant twists and turns he made, and sudden acceleration at unusual angles enabled him to skip past defenders with ease. Most defenders have to resort to blatant fouling (e.g. pulling him down, missing the ball and ended up going for his legs) to stop him"
It is true that in his younger days (2003-2006) Ronaldo attempted way more dribbles, however if you were around the cafe at that time, you would know that most of Man Utd fans considered him a "pony trick" because there was no end product to a lot of those dribbles. At that time the consensus around the cafe was that Rooney was the best young player of Man United. It is until the 2006/2007 that Ronaldo took it to the next level and he did so by purging his game from a lot of his dribbling and focused more on scoring which resulted in the player that we know today.
Now i already feel like what i just said will get misinterpreted. Even after changing his game, Ronaldo was a good dribbler, however thinking that he once was a player who dominated the game with his dribbling is a misconception.
"You pointed out players who ally both GOAT level playmaking and GOAT level scoring. Yet listed Zidane and Iniesta as examples of genius."
You misunderstood what i was saying those are 2 different things. Iniesta and Zidane do not fit the category of GOAT playmakers and GOAT goalscorer, actually there are only 3 players in History that check both boxes and they seem to come off once every 30 years.
I did not say that Iniesta and Zidane were genius (even though well they arguably are) i said that they fit the definition we as football fans give to that word.
Genius is not meant as a synonym to GOAT goalscorers/playmakers, it is an adjective to describe players who have an amazing control of the ball.
"With all due respect, Zidane and Iniesta both had very poor end product despite the position they frequently take up as the most advanced midfielder in their teams."
I think this the statement i disagree with the most. Well firstly Iniesta never played as the most advanced midfielder in his team, Barca always played a 4-3-3 and he was one of the two CM's. The role of a midfielder is not to score goals or to bang up a lot of assists. The role of a midfielder is to link up the defense to the attack. So be able to bring the ball to the final third either by carrying or by passing it. And alongside Xavi they were the best in the world in doing so. The fact that he played so far away from the goal meant that a lot of his dribbles and passes that collapsed defenses and lead to shots/goals were not counted as assists. Very often in Football the pass that makes the difference is not the assist, but the pass that precedes it. This is why a stat like SCA (Shot creating actions) is much better than Assists to Assess the creative value of a player.
During the 2012-2013 season, Iniesta was played on the wing for 8 games, he was higher up the field so his creation showed more on basic stats like goals and assists. During that stretch he banged up a goal and 9 Assists ( more than an assist per game !).
As for Zidane it is true that he was playing higher than Iniesta, i was too young to fully understand the game when he was in his prime, but it wouldn't surprise me if reasons that explain his unimpressive stat line are similar to Iniesta's. Maybe someone who was avidly following Juve and Real at that time might provide more insight on this.
"But how exactly do they fit in your definition of GOAT level scoring?"
Another misunderstanding, i never said that they were GOAT goalscorers.
"Even the likes of Maradona could fulfil only the criteria of GOAT level playmaking. He was never a prolific goal scorer. Do you regard Maradona as a genius then?"
Well i think by this point we understood that there was a misunderstanding around the meaning of the term "Genius" so i won't come back on it.
Though i will say that people severely underestimate Maradona's goalscoring abilities. The reason is that people look at the raw numbers while ignoring the context. The truth is Maradona played his prime in the most defensive league of Football History. Therefore his numbers look underwhelming. in the 1987 season in which Napoli won the league there were less than 2 goals scored per game. Despite this he managed to end up as the league's top goal scorer in 1989 despite playing very deep as a playmaker. So while it's true that he may fall a bit short from the true GOAT goalscorers he is definitely severely underrated on that regard.
"It is one thing to possess the natural talent and ability. But to actually produce it on multiple occasions to lead your team to success requires a very different kind of mentality altogether."
The players that i mentioned fit this criteria too, just a reminder.
"And Ronaldo is GOAT in this regard."
No disagreements here.
