For me, there are a few moments in Kirk's playing like the solo from "Don't Thread on Me" and the muted wah intro to "Memory remains" solo, but quite frankly, most of the time it's as if he's speaking a language I can't understand. I "hear" Santana, Vai, Satriani, Gilmour, but Kirk's solos are mostly "empty" for me. It's almost as if he's playing random notes and they sound good every once a while, based on probbability. He HAS improved over the years, but I still don't hear HIM in his playing. It's more like : " What is this? Is this a solo? Was that out of key? Is he listening to the band while playing?" I would never use Mr. Hammet in the same sentence with words like "genius", "brilliant" and such.
On the other hand, I'm sure you'll find most of todays rythm guitar players sounding more or less like James, whose solos I do "hear", BTW.
However, I might not be competent since I consider Dave Murray very, VERY bad.