Again, this picking and choosing of majors doesn't help but I'll play your game. Just like you claim that rankings for Texas gets mired by balancing public obligation with excellence, other schools around the country face the same challenges without enjoying the benefit of being in the second largest state in the union. Its a rigged game given instate vs out of state tuitions. Texas has to be compared to its peers with equal budget like California public schools. And when you do it lags behind UCLA, Berkeley and even Michigan in every single metric you provided. Wisconsin too at times.
UT is better than NU, Aggy, OU,OK State etc but like you said allowing those lower rung of society to experience college and get a degree is immeasurably important. So while you walk around puffing your chest claiming UT's superiority over them, its purely due to budgets offered by the state. When it goes pound for pound, it inevitably falls short. And my original argument still holds strong that while its a good enough public school, its no match for Stanford, UCLA, Rices of the world.