I'm not saying it makes him a better footballer, but I'm not sure I can agree that it doesn't help make people better players.
We had better footballers than Martin O'Neill's teams, but they physically battered us.
For the purist it;'s not pretty, but it is undoubtedly a football attribute. If it wasn't, we could all just prance about doing tricks and skills, and street soccer guys would have a place in the game.
And again, I'm not making a case for Ronaldo being better, but there are undoubtedly things he's better at than Messi. How can you say the other two don't matter? If Messi comes up against a packed defence that he just can't get through, and he's constantly shown onto his right foot from 30 yards out, don't you think he'd benefit from being able to batter in 30 yard right footers? Or being able to out jump just about anyone to score a header?
I prefer Messi, and agree with most on here that he's better than Ronaldo, but there are cases to be made for Ronaldo, certainly when people are saying Messi trumps him at everything when he clearly doesn't, and ultimately it's down to people's preference.
Messi should have more Ballon D'or's too. Modric getting it wasn't the correct decision, no matter how good Real or Croatia were. There would have been more of a case for handing it to Xavi or Iniesta one year than Modric getting it last year.