And remember that Ronaldo plays exclusively as a forward, while Messi can do that as well as a midfielder, dropping deeper to get the ball and creating for teammates. I find it interesting that you ascribe Messi's earlier success to Xavi/Iniesta, but fail to mention how Marcelo, Kroos, Modric, Isco, and Benzema do most of the work on CR's goals (and terrible misses this La Liga season).

Perhaps when it comes to headers or PKs one can argue that CR is better. Everything else? Messi does it better than everyone else, by a wide margin. Here's the data I'm talking about - pay close attention to the sections about dribbling, unassisted opportunities, and long-range shots, where the players around them are not as much of a factor: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lionel-messi-is-impossible/.