Aldnoah.Zero

[fireheart]

Put very simply, yes.
Since these anime keep getting mentioned: Light and L from Death Note, or Lelouch from Code Geass, were geniuses, because they were capable of thinking up plans outside of anybody´s realm of thinking. And yes, realistically speaking, many of these plans were bullshit, in how far-seeing they were and such. But that´s what made it awesome and exciting to follow. You really got the feeling that these were geniuses that are so far above all other characters, wondering what they´d do next, what exactly their current goal might be.
With Inaho, sans the apparent super-math skills, it´s different. Inaho isn´t really thinking outside of the box. He´s having ideas that, imo, most people would come up with (and I only used videogames as an example btw). His ideas simply aren´t special enough to make me go "Woah!". Now, that still would be okay, you know. A plan is a plan, as long as it works, what else matters? But here arises the problem: The other characters in this anime, including supposedly highly-intelligent military leaders, keep praising Inaho for his ... ?genius?. They act as if their own plans can only ever consist of sending their own pilots out against the enemy, standing there shooting ... and waiting to be killed. Because they dont have any clever ideas.
That is why I´d have preferred the confidence angle: Have other characters come up with similar ideas, but have Inaho is the only one daring to actually do it. Exceptional confidence is better than faw-creativity.

In the end, yes, Inaho is a genius within the world of Aldnoah.Zero. But that, very obviously, isnt saying a whole lot.

Looking at the past few pages, no they don't keep getting mentioned, you mention them and others only mention them in reply to you.

I don't really remember any of the plans etc that Light and L did so won't talk about them. Lelouch I do remember though since it was more recent. If I compare Inaho and Lelouch and break down their actions then they're not really that different. Step 1 (Intel): Inaho gathers intel by experimenting himself in midst of battle, Lelouch gains intel through others or by using his geass. Step 2 (Make use of intel): Inaho makes some kind of decision based on what kind of resources he has at his disposal in midst of battle, Lelouch usually spends days or weeks to come up with a plan and useful pawns. Step 3 (Win): Inaho wins (unless plot says otherwise), Lelouch wins (unless plot says otherwise). Honestly if we had access to all the intel that Lelouch had about everything in the city it's hardly impossible for any of us to make a note of what could be used or make counter plans when you have days or weeks to plan.

As Ryllharu says there's no foreshadowing in the things Lelouch does and we get to see some intel (far from everything) -> end result. While with Inaho we get to see every step from intel gathering -> decision -> execution -> end result.

Looking at Lelouchs track record, he's easily swayed by his emotions and doesn't really handle unknown factors/surprises well. Inaho is basically the opposite he's cold and reactive so he can deal with unknown factors/surprises a lot easier and really that's what makes him different from the rest in the show. Another thing to keep in mind is that most of Inahos fights are 1v1 while Lelouchs usually fight by moving troops around.

Finally a quote from Rider in F/Z: "Using a simple method to accomplish something impressive far outshines using a complex method to achieve the same thing." honestly I agree with this quote, why make anything needlessly complicated if you can achieve it through more simple means?

Edit: By the way your idea about putting napalm all over the place probably wouldn't work. It saps the molecular motion of everything within 1 km radius. If you drop the napalm to make a path the whole path would get frozen at the same time and from what Inaho gathered the grenades won't make it past 50 m without being completely frozen. Having burning napalm rain down into his field and travel 1 km? Seems very unlikely that it'd even make it to the ground since he could stop chemical reactions as proven by the batteries. So unless you have any other ideas you'd probably be dead now (For the record if it was me I'd probably already be dead).