IMHO, Napoleon beat Wellington the one time when he was in Spain and would have cleaned his clock if he wasn't busy in Russia. Napoleon's Marshalls in Spain were egotistically uncooperative and vainly refused to cooperate with each other to defeat the British. Napoleon would have stopped that nonsense in a heartbeat.
Yes, Wellington beat Bonapart at Waterloo. But you have to realize that almost all Bonapart's best Marshalls were dead. Almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong and Napoleon STILL almost beat Wellington, who himself admitted the battle was "a close run thing."
The extent of Wellington's personal command at Waterloo didn't really go beyond reverse slope tactics, and trying to keep his Allies from running away. It wasn't so much Blucher who won the battle for Wellington, as it was Grouchy marching and counter-marching, completely failing his orders to prevent the Prussians from assisting Wellington AND failing to "march to the sound of the guns" and assist Napoleon at Waterloo.
You can bet that if Lannes or Bernadotte had lead those Corps, Napoleon would have defeated Wellington at Waterloo. I am convinced.
Wellington won the day and he earned it. He was more than competent. But I don't understand why any one would consider him a great General.
Reverse sloping is the perfect tactic of choice to defeat Napoleon's battle plan. Masking troop setup meant that Napoleon's choice tactics were almost impossible to implement. This is something that Wellington learned in Spain. Furthermore, Wellington early on and Wellington later were two different generals. Kind of like the early George Washington trying to face Brits at Brooklyn Heights compared to George Washington at Trenton and Princeton.
Furthermore, Wellington's aura of leadership was what I believe made him a good general. His ability to locate fire, his ability to rush to a challenged spot and lead men, and his cool under fire. In fact, he HATED Napoleon's false shows of theater in front of troops, preferring a true gentlemanly approach to warmaking.
Finally, Wellington never abused power the way Napoleon did. Even as a political leader, he refused to become a Napoleon of his own.
Finally, the observance of officers on your part is notable, but I am reminded of this saying my martial arts instructor always tells me:
An apprentice blames his tools, an expert makes better tools, a master guides the tools to work for him. Not every great general has had a good group of officers surrounding them. That hasn't kept them from becoming great, though. A bad general laments the lack of a good commanders. A better general institutes the training of better commanders. The best general guides his officers, and inserts himself where needed.