Why Kim's strength is not the same as SF4 top tiers

Kim's midscreen dominance is not the same thing as the non-existent neutral game in some SF4 matchups.

In Abel vs. Rufus, a jump from Rufus followed by divekicks at various heights (or no divekick at all) requires distinct answers from Abel. In short, every time Rufus jumps, Abel must guess to anti-air or let him land with no resistance. If Rufus gets in, Abel is weaker than most characters in the game to Rufus' mixups.

With Kim, his normals are not incredibly different from other characters' normals with the exception of standing D, which has a fairly simple counter so he cannot abuse it against more experienced players. His major strengths are the range of his air Hangetsuzans, the invincibility of EX air Hangetsuzan, and the range + safety of ground EX Hangetsuzan.

Every single character in KOF can fight these options and beat them cleanly. The issue is that in order to be able to react to these options, you must stand a good 70% of the screen away, which means that without a projectile you are not a threat. Kim will likely run towards you and choose one of these options, and that is strong, but it is not decided by your character that you cannot deal with it. The onus is on the player to discourage Kim from using them too often. They can do this by making smart plays, and every character is absolutely capable of that if the player has good whiff punishment skills, knows how to beat standing D, understands frame data, and knows the spacing to deal with these options.

Abel vs Rufus is guess-guess-guess-guess-dead, no matter who wins. The neutral game completely falls apart if the Rufus knows what to abuse. No amount of learning, practice, or skill can get around this with the exception of raw abare yomi. Kim's KOF dominance cannot be denied, but he is not circumventing the movesets of characters. There are simply a few more good midrange tools that Kim has compared to the other characters that Kim players abuse to strengthen their approach and oki games. All of which can be overcome by any player with the requisite knowledge.