This comes down to the same thing actually, what is the 'right goal'? This discussion goes in circles. In any case the Core developers are definitely better than those behind Classic.
Absolutely not the same thing.
To use an analogy, a CEO of a company may have a star programmer,
but that programmer is not qualified to do the CEOs job and decide
what the mission of the company should be, what kind of software
it should be producing, or what features are most important.
Experience in programming is one thing. Deciding what Bitcoin should be is another.