Interesting thread...
Having raced against most of the above mentioned in both acat worlds and tybee formats (although at the back of the pack and usually just seeing the acaters at the start and if they lapped me ), I have several thoughts:
1) all the above mentioned are awesome sailors, its like saying whose better, the beatles or the rolling stones. They are both great, but different.
2) In general the tybee is a younger mans race, the acat is a boat that you can stay with as you mature both intellectually and physically. The acaters by virtue of their longer careers will in general have longer resumes in which the earlier entries will include distance achievements, and no doubt todays tybee champs will likely evolve into an acat equivalent format as they mature.
3) That being said, the tybee is about endurance and maintenence of the "groove". Every second literally over 7 to 15 hours that you can't quickly refine and hold that boat at max efficiency, you will lose ground. I don't care if your hungry, thirsty, tired, gotta pee, got salt water or suntan lotion in your eye, your hands are cramped, you don't feel good, your nose itches, whatever, you gotta focus like a razor every minute, no break. Whoever can do that the best, the longest, is gonna win.

The acaters however will know more about finessing their one sail and everbalancing their very sensitive boat while maintaining the visual chess game of a quickly changing playing field, and will have very well honed mark rounding strategy and start strategy (and finishing strategy).

4) So one person can surely excel at both but maybe not at the same age or stage of their careers and/or have time to simultaneously hone both edges to stay at the top of both efforts, though there is heavy crossover in skills obviously.
5) I think we are all trying to find one boat that we can all buy (afford!) to compete on and compare ourselves with in both distance and bouy formats. Currently this is trending (strongly) to f-18 and we'll see more people pursieing the Mischa and JC patterns and exceling at both formats on the same platform.
6) Then we can hold the acat vs f-18 mega sail off in boat swapping alter cup format in a month long series in Pensacola.
7) Trey has to sail with both hand tied behind his back.

Ok whatever,
humbly,