>>713050941I agree that Eggman's are better on average (same for Knuckles over Rouge and Sonic over Shadow: You can tell that the original intent was just Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman being playanle or at least the focus per the early teaser trailers), but I don't think any of Tail's stages are "bad" other then maybe Eternal Engine which is the only arguably bad mech stage in general
In fact i'd say Hidden Base is probably better or as good as Sand Ocean, Prison Lane is about as good or only slightly worse then Iron Gate, and the same is probably true for Mission street vs Lost colony. It's really mostly just that Eternal Engine is iffy and Weapon's Bed and Cosmic Wall are great