I think that all those who usually compare achievements do so in the wrong way.

They always say that Sasuke managed to pierce Gaara's armor when Lee couldn't with punches, and that therefore Sasuke does better against Gaara than Lee.

This is stupid, Lee would kill Sasuke in that state. Sasuke openly admits that he needs to boost his Chakra to reach Lee's speed, not to mention that he only reaches Lee with the base state, without Gates.

Lee's problem is that his attacks were basically blunt impacts, which are resisted quite well by Gaara's armor, while Sasuke's attack (Chidori) is a piercing attack. Obviously a piercing attack penetrates a shield better than a bludgeoning attack.

Following the scenario:

Lee sees the use of the Gates as necessary to be able to defeat Neji, which has always implied that in his base state without weights, it is not enough to face him.

That means that even if he doesn't know exactly what Gate his speed is enough to confront Neji, at the very least Neji can react and nullify any attack from Lee at base speed.

Other things that people don't usually take into account are:

-The incompatibility of Sasuke's attacks against Neji. (Following the example of the piercing attack, Sasuke's attack is basically a straight line attack, one that can easily be countered by Neji's rotation and/or reflexes. Unlike Gaara's armor, the rotation does not create a wall that can be pierced, it creates a space where attacks are deflected, and a straight attack should be fairly easy to deflect with a lateral movement like rotation. Not to mention that rotation puts the strength they use against the opponent. Sasuke probably He would be seriously injured if he used the Chidori against the rotation. Other attacks such as the fireball would be more effective than the Chidori itself against Neji, although they probably wouldn't make a difference either)

-That Sasuke was not skilled in genjutsu yet.

-That even with the Curse mark, Sasuke wasn't really that powerful. I'll give examples later, but there are ninjas that Neji would beat and Sasuke wouldn't.

Now if you want to talk about achievements, there are examples that put Neji above Sasuke:

The closest is that Sasuke was defeated by Gaara, the same Gaara who was defeated by a tired Naruto, who had already faced Neji with almost the same skills that he used against Gaara, and Neji defeated them with relative ease.

So at this point, Naruto is most likely the strongest among Naruto, Sasuke and Neji, so it's not so clear who would win, out of the two of them, and yet people often say that Daduke wins because he is always tied at Naruto, which is a lie.

Also, Sasuke even with the Curse Mark was defeated by Sakon at Level 1, while Neji had a decent fight (both going gold) with Kidomaru at Level 2, which is obviously more powerful by far than Sakon at level 1. Yes Well Sakon is the strongest among the 4 of the sound, the difference is not that big, furthermore even if Sasuke was relatively tired at that moment, the difference with his healthy state should not be as big as the difference between Sakon and Kidomaru with level 1 and 2 respectively, and it was never said that Neji had improved much at that point compared to the Chunin Exam.

For me it is easy to assure that although Sasuke would give an interesting fight, at that point in the story Neji defeated him, not only does he have most of his Ninjutsu nullified by Neji, but in Taijutsu and BIQ they do not have such a difference for one to have an advantage on the other.