1. Sandra -
I never thought she got enough credit for winning the first time she played.
a.) Both times she won by large margins, 6-1, and 6-3. Furthermore, the people who voted for Sandra both times generally liked her .. and the votes against her were not "angry" votes. This is VERY rare. The only other winners to avoid pissing off jury members were Earl and J.T. who both swept their seasons.
b.) Sandra actually had a LOT more strategy going on than most viewers realize, if you listen to the exit interviews. While Russell actually got lucky with Tyson's vote, Sandra was well-positioned in many scenarios: Had the vote gone against Rusell rather than Rob, she was in a comfortable final 4 alliance, but planned to get rid of Rob at the merge and replace it with an even stronger cross-tribe alliance, with Candice, Courtney and some other hero. Had Danielle not been booted, she had a final three with Parvati and Danielle. Had Candice not voted out Amanda, Sandra was probably not going to be "6th in the hero's alliance" as most people thought, but Sandra did not really explain the details.
c.) Sandra was one of the best people readers of anybody who has played. She was one of the few who was never duped by Russell and Johnny Fairplay, probably the two most devious players.

2. Parvati -
She really is amazing, for many of the reasons already discussed on this board, and she might very well have become a two-time winner if not for Sandra.

3. Earl -
He was never in trouble during his season, he received only 1 stray "throw away" vote during his many trips to tribal council, and was the first person to ever sweep the jury.

Some of the runner-ups: Vecepia (very underrated player as well, great at reading people, was first to win from being down in numbers, and masterfully won over the jury in final tribal council by "coming clean") and Todd (brilliant to protect his alliance member James by giving him an idol, among other things)

I also have to admit that Chris was fairly good, even though I find him to be an unlikeable villain. He managed to dupe the jury members at the final tribal council, covering up some of his dirty lies.

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Some of the popular winners who I feel are a bit over-rated:

- Richard Hatch .. Yes he did "invent" alliances, sort-of, but he had quite a bit of luck and nearly lost due to his poor people skills. e.g. Kelly nearly voted him out in final 4, and had she not changed her vote on the re-vote, he had more prior votes than Susan Hawk, and wouldn't have been final 3. Also he made the jury more bitter against him than necessary.

- Yul .. His strategy was really base and inflexible. "Let's align the Asians with the Whites on day 6" without getting to know anybody. Candice, one of his own alliance partners, mutineed out of his alliance, and then he was lucky to have Ozzy (whom he did not align with, and was nearly ready to vote out well before the merge) carry his tribe with amazing immunity challenge performances. He was also protected by an immunity idol back during the two seasons when the power of the idol was too strong .. you could play it after the votes.

- Tom Westman .. was not a big fan of him either. He was basically an immunity challenge star. His social game was not that terrific. He basically was in the finals with an extremely unpopular opponent, and even there managed to ##### off a jury member at the final tribal council enough to lose a vote. I think his second time playing, when he actually did have to play a social game, revealed mistakes, i.e., he basically ignored Cirie who wanted to work with him, and had he not been so arrogant, he would have had her votes when he needed it.

- Brian Heidik .. IMO he got very lucky. He was terrible with the jury, in a delusional way, winning by only one vote, not understanding why it was so close .. and one of the few winners who would have lost had the jury "seen the show before voting" i.e., he would have lost Helen's vote.
His social game was basically making final two agreements with 3 of his 4 tribemates, who chose not to talk to each other. Plus he benefited a lot by the other tribe self-destructing, i.e., tossing an immunity challenge because they were way up in numbers, not realizing that the merge would not happen until final 8.