The reason the Brojos' claim is receiving heated blowback is because Hall's record in famous and/or championship races just isn't very good. He has one great championship race (the OT in NYC) and several very fast races. Wonderful. That easily gets him into the "one of the greatest American-born marathoners in history column," and, most would agree, pretty easily into the Top 3 category.
But most who post here would also want us to factor in the championship and Big-Race-win category, and there, Rogers is clearly superior, pre-Kenyan-era or no pre-Kenyan-era.
If the presence of Kenyans is required to certify the superiority of white performance, let's just throw out Zatopek as well. Not.
Rogers threw down in the big races, again and again. His record speaks for itself. Shorter's olympic gold speaks for itself as well, and if he is exempt because he wasn't actually BORN in America--I mean, come on. That's silly.