Hate to see it , but Flawless demonstrated he is pop radio generic when it comes to songs . He showed that in the songs he came up with for the vid and for the live performance. While he is close to smoke in polish, it stems from a high floor. Smoke’s polish comes from a really high ceiling .
I woulda like to see Flawless produce his own tracks . I think he was stymied just a bit by the parameters of the show . For flawless it’s pop 100 or bust . Not much nuance there from what he demonstrated . Seems like a good guy . Mature and seasoned .
He (Flawless) already has quite a bit of material out there that is seemingly self-produced. More than Smoke had readily available. Just check him out on Spotify, Youtube and other platforms.
As for technical merit and polish, I was saying during the entirety of the show with their performances, Flawless showed to be most polished out of everyone, since Smoke actually slipped up once and almost happened again. I think they're about even on the strictly rapping side, with Flawless being more hardcore bar/battle oriented and Smoke being more of an thought-provoking/inspirational POV. For rap tho, it's just a matter of preference IMO. I hear you tho if you consider Smoke's family musical presence all within and connecting to him and a bit with the song writing style and looking at them from a purely artistic perspective for what was shown on the show. I think Flawless was more...traditional and intentional than feeling like he was pop. To each his own tho.
Simon was a big part of American Idol entertainment because he was an a$$hole. Cardi brings greater levels of entertainment and she didn't even need to be an a$$hole. Credit where credit is due, there would be a lot of people loving her antics on this, even if there is some who found it annoying. And she was the best of the judges in the finale, the way she broke down the contestants when all 3 were summarizing the final 4.
D Smoke the rightful winner. The battle round unfortunately killed off some of the better contestants who would have been great to watch in the later rounds, like Beanz, Jakob, Queen, Old Man Saxon, especially compared to trash like Sam B Yourself or Tomineek.
I agree with almost everything you said here, except for the bolded two in comparison to others you named. Jakob got bars, but fumbled all throughout the show and while he had some good background story in his bars too (without whining about it no less, so extra points), I don't feel artistry from him. More personality than Sam tho, so he could've possibly replaced him. Queen seemed like a sheer gimmick that wore out her welcome the more she progressed which is just why she didn't progress much further than she did and rightfully so.
I think Beanz and Saxon would've been very interesting to see in the later rounds, especially Saxon on those live performances. He seemed almost akin to a Morris Day on a rap side of what we could've gotten for an original live performance. He had some cool ass lines too and was entertaining as fukk and very original for the rap game, but w/o a sacrifice for skill. Beanz I think may have pulled of a dope video and better than Sam/Tomineek did, if given the chance. Ionno how she would've faired on the live performances. She may have levelled up with the push of the show's direction to have done well enough, but I definitely couldn't have seen her beating out any of the top 4 in that front, which was integral for those last 3 rounds.
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100% rigged payola. All the true underground independent artists who were a threat got sent home first. Only the plants made it to the main event. 
