I tend to agree, though there are some players from past eras whose records stand out. Bradman obviously, Grace, Hobbs, perhaps Barnes. And there are other players from the same sort of period I'd happily class as extremely good, like Sutcliffe, Hammond or even McCabe. The second tier players from that sort of period I don't really rate, and I'd never consider someone like Sutcliffe for an all-time team, because of the gap in professionalism in the main. The thing with Hobbs is that he played across a fair expanse of time and a range of conditions. He might not have been tested in terms of quality pace bowling like people who came before and after him were, but he encountered a greater range of conditions and bowlers than someone who just played between the wars, and his record is quite phenomenal. Throw in his first class record and the accolades he recieved from his peers and he's unquestionably the best batsman in test cricket before Bradman, and probably the best opener you could find.
Hobbs is almost a certainty in an all-time XI for me, along with Bradman, Sobers and Gilchrist. Simply head and shoulders above the competition in their respective positions, while any other place in the team can be debated, though I think Gavaskar pretty much has a lock on the other opening spot.
The problem with PhoenixFire's position isn't that he rates players from the past highly, it's that he simply refuses to acknowledge the possibility that anyone could be better than them, and places them on a pedestal far beyond what is warranted. Saying "Ponting can never be better than Hobbs" is simply absurd because Ponting could finish with a test average of 80, 70 centuries and 20,000 runs. Obviously he won't, but if he batted like Bradman for the rest of his career it's possible. Records are made to be broken, and all players, aside from Bradman perhaps, will probably be surpassed at some time or another. The problem going the other way, towards a C_C sort of perspective, is that you can't cut down a great player from another era with mere speculation. Obviously Hobbs never faced a bowler like, say, Lillee, but he faced bowlers and conditions that current players don't have to contend with as well, and these sort of things even out in the end. It's fair enough to rate professionalism as a key aspect of strong competition, but picking out specifics like speculating about the pace bowlers bowled at or ideas about sportsmanship and stuff is just a waste of time, IMO.
