I can understand themes without getting sucked into pretentious babble that makes no real sense other than to support a sketchy narrative.
In MGS1, it's never stated exactly how Solid Snake is meant to be inferior. Genetically it makes no sense, since whether he has dominant or recessive alleles wouldn't make much of a difference. Does it refer to his experience? Well then of course he bested Liquid because Liquid wasn't the one who went through Outer Heaven and Zanzibar and beat Big Boss twice, which ties into my original post. The game goes out of its way to portray Liquid and Solid as opposites, but also equals. So Kojima can't arrive at the point in his own narrative.
In MGS2, Raiden is already an extremely capable soldier who was the best child soldier in Liberia, trained from childhood by Solidus Snake, who followed Solid Snake's mythos and underwent VR training. During the Big Shell incident, he succeeds only with the help of others. He doesn't do anything particularly special besides killing Solidus and a fat bomber on roller skates. He doesn't match Solid Snake, and that was never the point of the S3 Plan to begin with. It was to see if people could be made to play specific roles if presented appropriate context. This doesn't translate to "magically become best soldier ever." The next time we see Raiden he's been literally dismembered. He was never equal to Solid Snake.
MGS3 depicted Big Boss' earliest major mission at a crucial turning point in the series that serves as the progenitor of everything else. It didn't undercut anything, it showed how he came to be the best soldier that century. He was still just as legendary as before, as you can't become a great soldier without training and experience, both of which were explained by MGS3.
MGS4's story is where the whole thing collapsed so it's not a great example. It's a game absolutely buggered with retcons, contradictions and shittier writing than any of its predecessors. Peace Walker and MGSV just followed suit.
Wits and instincts aren't shit if your muscles are dead. Venom might as well have just stayed in a coma.
People don't "get" memories. Not even in MGS2 is this ever a thing. Even if it were possible, how would you do it? Would the person remember absolutely every single action and thought at the time of the memory? Or do they just have a vague notion of "something happened"?
Oh, and "meta" doesn't mean "good."
It's not dominant and recessive, it's inferior and superior.(twin snakes fixes that) It was referring to their "soldier genes" the stuff they isolated in BB's DNA and put in the the genome soldiers that made them, stronger, faster, better eyesight, faster reaction times, etc etc. Liquid had all the good stuff that made him a Brock Lesnar genetic freak of nature while Solid had all the shitty stuff.
Raiden had his memories repressed, his only experience in his mind was the VR training. I think taking down a hoard of Metal Gear Rays is the biggest feat in the series, and taking down Solidus cannot be downplayed with how badly the deck was stacked against him with the exoskeleten. He doesn't have to be literally as good as Solid, the point is he could fill in the "role" of his legend, the patriots proved they could do it to anyone. That's what Venom does, he might not be as good as BB in reality or maybe he is, it doesn't matter, he just has to play the role.
MGS3, it was about The Boss. She was the supposedly greatest ultimate soldier of all time and what happens, she gets taken down at the end despite gving it her all. Snake bought in to her hype and legend and didn't believe he ever stood a chance against her, the government sure didn't believe in Snake as it was set up that Boss was going to take a dive. Only the Boss herself didn't believe her own hype and knew Snake always had it in him to beat her and the Cobras.
MGSV then reveals that Skullface was behind the scenes and how he insured Snake's missions including Snake Eater would succeed. BB's crowning moment in Snake Eater was revealed to be not as crazy and legendary as the stories make it seem.
The problem with many of the characters in the series is they buy into and become obsessed with the legends. Liquid, Solidus, Big Boss, Zero, the Patriots, all of them had issues with trying to surpass, live up to, and/or recreate the stories in their heads, obseesed with the "secret sauce" they think the legends had.
The only person that never gave a shit about any of that stuff was Solid Snake, and you could say The Boss too I guess.