Both have very different driving styles, Hamilton likes to through the car in the corner and let it slide. Button is very smooth on exit and entire to the corner...... Which works better for them? I'd have to say Hamilton. I would choose him over Button if i were a new F1 boss, but both a very good drivers in their own right.
While he was the best driver in the field for a period, leaving his teammates in the dust was usually due to team orders and his unequivocal status as the No. 1 driver. While I loved Irvine he wasn't near the performer MS was and Rubens when allowed to race Michael certainly showed him his heels from time to time. Michael beat his teammates off the track before they even got on the track. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
I think Rosberg will be a second Button (if we forget about the last 2 races). He will always be the future star right to the end of his career.
Ron, you can't have your cake and eat it, which is what you are effectively trying to do. You begin by saying it is too early and therefore not possible to tell whether LH is or isn't the 'real deal' and suggest that those who think he might be are 'silly', but then you decide it is possible and apparently not silly for you to believe he probably isn't the real deal (just another JV). It doesn't make a lot of sense to belittle the opinion of others on the grounds that it is too early to tell and immediately go on to take the opposite view, which, by definition, must also be a premature assessment and therefore 'silly'.