You can't really say that those stories have anything over Silver Nemesis objectively. I'd argue they don't. There is no objectively better story in this instance, at least not that people can agree on. I'm not going to repeat my problems with GL/TCoF for the hundredth time, but I could easily argue that they are objectively bad stories, with huge flaws at basically every level. In the end, they're some of the worst of Classic Who I've seen (although not as bad as literally the worst Doctor Who story from either Classic or nuWho that I've seen, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy). No real point derailing the thread to argue that, though.
Greatest Show as Well? That literally has the spoon playing in.
I like Nemesis myself...I can’t comment on any non Ace Sylvester stories though, as apart from Time and the Rani, I missed them at transmission and can only go from the novelisations. But...Ghost Light and Fenric are both very very dense narratives which carries right through into the production design. Nemesis..much as I like it...is not as dense. There are not as many things going on. Every story in season 26 had a lot of stuff below the surface...season 25 too, except for Nemesis, and, to an extent, Happiness Patrol. Season 24...was the beginning of this. It’s something Cartmel was definitely better at than his predecessor, Eric Saward, where most of the time what was going on beneath the surface was DEATH DEATH And more DEATH for many years (Not always a bad think...Revelation May have been totally bad for kids, and frankly a bit dull in places and almost bugger all to do with the Doctor...but it was certainly a layered story.) Cartmel actually succeeded in his intention to make Who more culturally relevant, more up to date, just so few noticed because of its slot and the prevailing winds in fandom which started with a whisper in the late Baker era, abated a little with Davisons early years, but were a full on Levine Storm by the Baker the Second era...only fed by some of the mistakes made in his tenure. Cartmel made the stories more adult, without losing kids, and without relying on a nihilistic core...Veangance On Varos and Mindwarp have their echoes in Paradise Towers and Happiness Patrol but are much better stories.
Sylvester stayed the clown, but he was an angry clown, raging at an unfair universe and fighting things that needed to be fought, with his best mate and surrogate daughter/granddaughter. It was very much a reaffirmation of the core character, not least in Nemesis, where he’s playing so many nasty ideologies against each other and getting them to destroy themselves. For the time, it was very much perfect, I say that as someone who was about seven at the time, and therefore Who’s main audience. The fact those last few seasons were echoed for the next twenty years, their effects plain in the success of the returned series, is not an accident. The fact Capaldi went back to the Colin Baker method was also quite telling with its comparative failure next to Smith and Tennant (who largely echoed the Seventh and Fifth Doctors.)
So...Nemesis...not as bad as some would claim, just not quite as effective as mix as the others. If we had say...Battlefield here, and Nemesis opening season 26, I think both those stories would be better received by fandom. (Battlefield has its flaws...casting and costuming mostly...but it’s far far better than fandom gives it credit for. I flipping love the Shou Ying scenes and the boom scene. And they aren’t even the best bits. Morgaine is.)
I know you have said you aren’t interested in derailing the thread (we aren’t, all of this is around the context of extended cuts like Fenric received, and the merits or failings of Nemesis.) but I am curious what fails you so badly in those other stories that you don’t see in these earlier Sylvester ones too.
. I hate a good portion of the 7th Doctor's era, and only really liked him when he was a nice guy who played with spoons and not the sociopathiv monster Cartmel turned him into by the end. This is not new information.
Still better than Saward's era in terms of having a consistent vision/direction, though... unfortunately.