Couldn't agree with you more. To me, the major difference between Sampras and Federer is that the surface played had a major say in Sampras' performance (his record on clay was rather poor for a GOAT candidate), where as Fed's dominance on all surfaces is pretty even (barring Nadal on Clay). That is why I think he should win FO beating Nadal, otherwise there will always be people who bring that up to tarnish his achievements. Fed has the possibility of doing something that has never been done before: going an entire year undefeated! Winning everything in sight.. He has been quite close to it a couple of years, but not quite. I don't know if he will ever do it, but the possiblity does exist.. I think that is why I would put Fed over Sampras. That possibility never existed with Sampras. However, the way Fed has been playing of late, I think he is farther from achieving it, than he ever was.
I do not mean to put down Sampras' achievements. It was tremendous, and when he retired, he seemed to have set the bar very high. Fed came along, and pushed the bar higher.. Fed seems to be an improved version of Sampras. He is just like sampras, but does most things better than him. I don't see why that is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, a few years (decades) down the line, there will a few tennis players who will push the bar even higher. It is only natural. So I believe there is nothing for Sampras fans to feel offended about. But what is offensive is putting down today's competition to make Fed's achievements look lesser than Sampras'!
The only difference between 90s and the present in terms of surfaces is wimbledon. I don't see how that has helped Federer any more than it has helped Nadal or other clay courters. Fed has already shown that he dominates lightning fast surfaces - he has completely dominated the year end Master's tourney at shangai. he's yet to lose a round robin match! So I don't see how he would not dominate wimby today, if wimby had retained the surface of the 90s.
Well, Sampras faced lots of S & V and good net players in his time, and he did well against most of them. Given that Fed has a superior baseline and return game than sampras, I don't see why Fed would have a problem in dealing with players of the caliber that sampras faced. Grinders are the ones that give him the most trouble, not aggressive attacking players. He usually out-attacks the aggressive players.