Except for the part where he was the fourth person voted out and was on the wrong side of almost every meaningful vote once he returned, yeah he was a tremendous player. He was certainly entertaining, was good at challenges, and had great hidden idol radar, but his success is entirely due to playing in the right season. Any other season, he is one of the people at the reunion show who barely gets two seconds of screen time, if that.
As I already said, they might as well change the name of the show to Idol Hunters. I'm not opposed to having idols in the game. They just way over use them, and make them ridiculously easy to acquire. They are a crutch for bad Survivor players, not a strategic tool for good ones.
Lauren, Lauren, Lauren. So pretty. So dumb. She would not have won anyway, but still.
Gavin made it to the final 3 without receiving a single vote for elimination and without finding any hidden idols. He did get one extra vote advantage from Julia, but its use did not change the outcome of a vote. He was not riding anyone's coattails. He was not being carried to the end because he wasn't seen as a threat. He did a masterful job of controlling his own fate. Based on everything we saw, my vote would have been for him.
I have to hand it to Chris. He did everything he could in the short time he had, but that includes being the third person voted out. Ironically, that is what won him the game.
Seeing how the voting went, with 3 of Gavin's 4 votes coming from the last three people eliminated, is very telling. None of those three had been bonding with Chris during his 28-day stay on Extinction Island. This was a vote along tribal lines all the way, with Team Extinct taking care of their own...someone they all got to know and like. Gavin's only chance would have been to find a hidden advantage of awesome personality, but they don't put those in the game...not yet anyway.
I have such a love/hate thing with this show. I want to stop watching it, but I can't.