Are all gold saints supposed to be equally strong? I've read some comments in internet where they refered to a supposed answer of the creator of Saint Seiya stating that all saints were equally strong. Is this true? This doesnt seem to be what's shown in the series and what fans in general think is saints like Shaka and Saga are usually ranked higher.
Unless there's an interview I'm not aware of, Kurumada never said that.

What he said is that what he really cared about was trying to create them all cool and powerful, but even him cannot say which one is the strongest.

You can check that here.