You're lying to yourself.
August was scared of Acno. Irene did nothing against him of note. She had to rearrange the continent to escape him.
Suzaku took every attack Selene threw at him and won, "she coulda become a dragon", but she didn't and her human form lost. Which she admits. He tanked that massive attack from Ignia. He tanked all those attacks from Dogramag. Him not being able to harm the best defended DG doesn't somehow erase those other feats. He's a DG/Human Acno character who's stats skew towards defense.
So, since Suzaku's feats are better than anything he's shown, the argument about a year ago doesn't hold weight. Just like his continental lvl spells are no longer as impressive.
Mashima also said that Gildarts as he is now is too powerful for the story as it is right now. SO we know for a fact he's surpassed Irene.
Mashima said she's still one of the strongest. OK. Top 20 is still in the strongest. She needed Wendy to beat Haku. Now if he says she's the strongest female human in the series, get at me.
What completely exposes them is the fact that they never address Jellal upstaging everything Eileen did against Acno.
Eileen gets wanked cause she dodged an attack from human Acno and pushing him back with a spell. And this was an Acno who was bored out of his mind and looking to kill time, who didn't realize Eileen was a DS
Jellal faced an Acno who was at least a bit more serious, who was intended on killing Wendy, a DS:
- blocked human Acno's spell intended to kill Wendy
- pushed back human Acno with his spell
- made human Acno eat his spell and transform
- dodged a continuous roar from dragon Acno that split open the sea
- blitzed dragon Acno using meteor
- pushed back dragon Acno using meteor
Eileen gets wanked for her "Acno feats" by the same dudes who downplay the shit out of Jellal even tho he did everything she did and more against Acno
If this isn't blatant agenda, I don't know what is.
*****************
Ultimately, both Eileen's and Jellal's feats are not really scalable, because Acno wasn't fully serious and we have seen what a truly serious Acno is capable of.
A serious Acno with killing intent blitzed God Serena and August. August didn't even realize Acno one shotted GS until Acno was like 100m behind him, and completely shat his pants. This is probably the most domineering blitz
EVER in the series, and it was done to the strongest Spriggan.
This is the reaction of the strongest Spriggan to a serious human Acno. Absolute fear and complete helplessness.
Serious Human Acno is capable of blitzing and one shotting
ANYONE in Alverez arc, except Zeref who is immortal and
maybe fully powered DF Natsu (a big maybe there).