Yeah, I see what you are saying, and I would blame poo poo heads at Hasbro too.
The 5 star general might just have been one of the fastest or most skillful earlier in his career, but it is his intelligence (and hopefully courage) that gets him to that 5 star general. If you want a show accurate, vs Hasbro corporate accurate, I would think it might be appropriate to change some of those numbers to reflect that realism. But, thats just my opinion.
For example, I might have Primal's numbers as follows:
Strength 10 (As a gorilla, I have no problem with his strength being superior)
Intelligence 10 (Definitely the max here)
Speed 6 (He's a gorilla. Faster than some trees, but slower than some cheetahs. Especially slower than say, Jetstorm or Thrust [poor Thrust, reduced to a motorcycle. Cool looking motorcycle, but he should be flying

])
Endurance 9 [Maybe less than max as he's a leader now and shouldn't be engaging in a lot of hand to hand combat. Still, I can see him pumping some dumbells from time to time. Like Tankor...)
Rank 10 (Yeah, this one's obvious.)
Courage 10 (Maxed here. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to order your soldiers to walk into possible [and sometimes certain] death.)
Firepower 8 (Again, strong, but as a general, he shouldn't be engaging in combat a lot. In reality [heh, Beast Machine reality anyway] if your general is engaging in combat, you must be up that proverbial creek without that proverbial paddle. Still, for the sake of the show, he did have to engage in combat. Was he the most powerful? I thought I remembered Tankor having a bit more power. Eight seems a nice compromise, IMO)
Skill 9 (I bet Primal practices on Cheetor. I don't know why I hate Cheetor so much. He just bugs the heck out of me.)
Of course, Primal might argue some of those numbers like Deon Sanders claiming he should have a speed rating of 100 in Madden...