I'm not sure I ever used the term strictly better, bit if I did it was facetious. Better, yes, definitely, but strictly better is obviously almost impossible to apply in PAD. Especially across colors.
As for squishiness, Nobunaga is in a color that actually gets shields, and his much better active means he csn afford utility slots much more easily than Neptune Dragon.
The ultimate is definitely a thing, obviously. I acknowledge that I'm being very impatient, but please do bear in mind that the materials for that form, much less the form itself, don't even exist in JP yet. So it's going to be a long, looong time before we see it here. If you think that impatience is unreasonable then fair enough, but from my perspective this new form is pretty abstract at this point.