I've been thinking about that myself. Some possibilities:
-You could correct me on this, but IIRC all the unarmed people gain lots of strength from level, right? You gave everyone a bunch of extra levels by promoting later than 20, and that presumably helps the unarmed people more. While I definitely disagree with the bonus levels for unarmed people, even that broader decision, while reasonable, is probably helping with the kneejerks here.
-Weapons. One of the reasons I disagree with the favouritism to the unarmed people, above, is that in-game you have better weapons than the DL. You can get some from mithril, and some are also from chests/100% enemy drops (though of course, never enough for everyone). I think this may be a case where giving everyone storebought only undersells those with weaker storebought weapons and inflates the others (see: VP2). Though I'm not sure what to do about this. But still I can't help but think there's something wrong when I take a look at the bows, note you have everyone with the Great Shot when there are two better bows from chests/drops, and more from Mithril... you'd almost never stick an archer with the Great Shot at endgame in-game.
Oh yeah and Mallow has some small evade rate like all SMRPG characters if that's a thing he needs to escape a heal-lock (both are average speed after turn 1).
On a Culex note, something I tested yesterday: this doesn't matter for the Kefka fight I don't think, but it looks like the crystals' first turns come somewhat slower than normal. They're all between 0 speed and 20 speed on the first turn... they'll go before someone with a Lazy Shell but after untwinked Mario. On round 2 they'll go at their listed speeds. Presumably this is related to the summoning; I have no idea why they act later in the round, but not just last. SMRPG mechanics! Kinda weird but there you are.