I'm not all that surprised it wasn't very spicy, although I don't know much about Thai peppers (I assume they're similar to arbol?). For me, cayenne is a pretty innocuous way to dial up heat at the end of a cook if need be. It rarely takes much.
He doesn't have the tempo control the other greats have, but holy shit, does he have a style all his own and a super unique groove. It's about as close to apples and oranges as one could get. I couldn't possibly imagine a different guy for The Police, and that pretty much puts him on Mount Rushmore for me.
Dan Quayle's political career was buried when he told a spelling bee competitor that he needed to spell "potato" with an "e" at the end.
Howard Dean's candidacy was doomed by a 2-second shout.
Gary Hart was a notorious womanizer and that derailed his bid for the Presidency.
Donald Trump just keeps on keeping on, doing worse things every single day.
He stayed between the ditches with Journey. He showed his stuff later.
That said, to your point, his effort on that clip didn't match the original, and he admitted as such. It's kind of an unfair fight, though.
It's only one data point, but I was set to take a national merit scholarship to study finance at a B1G school. Fall semester my senior year of HS, my dad (an engineering prof) said to me "you know, you're really good at math and you love music and hifi -- have you considered studying acoustics?"
It had never occurred to me. I ended up studying mech eng undergrad and then acoustics at UT for grad school (via the mech eng department). I am so fucking glad I didn't study finance.