Comparing each variant to their competitors of that era, for me at least, tells a different story. In 08, literally nobody had an answer to cypher. At the top, there was no rapha, there was no evil, dahang was 'catching up', spartie was also 'catching up', and many other current top players were not present or active.
From memory there was: Cypher, Avek, Jibo, Fox, Cooller and a couple more (K1llsen near the end of 08) who had the potential to win a lan tourney. Online, many more: Nike, Lamz Question, Amai, Slimk, Noctis (vq3 hub monster, when he cared about duel :'(( ) and quite a few others I can't quite remember.
Whether upon lan or online, when Cypher wanted to, he destroyed everyone in a bo3/5. The same cannot be said in 13/14/15, no one has an answer for evil online, and, no one seems to have an answer for Cypher on lan.
For a time period, surely. In their latest encounters, Rapha seemed to have declined. Loss of motivation, lack of valuable training partners, too much weed and wanking, who knows.
And actually, Rapha is dead or something, and he'll show up to quakecon just to grab the guaranteed 3rd or 2nd prize check, in horrible form.
I base my opinion on the fact that rapha didn't prac as much as cypher and didn't have such optimal conditions to become a champ. And yet he was equally good or even better at times. If rapha lived in Europe and could prac properly from the beginning of his career I'd say he'd be pretty clear #1.