Great post/points.
Kitana
1 - To call her iAF the second best Special in the game is Extremely bold. Spin? Teleport? Projectile maybe, but Special? Very bold statement. Im sorry but I cannot place her top 5. If your going to acknowledge the skill required to play Kitana at such a high level to be top 5 (iAF at high level is very challenging, and its skill alone doesn't make her a strong character, you still have to be a Great fighter), you should have no problem then conceding to the point that Reptile is easily top 5. since his combo and damage potential are extremely high but also extremely unforgiving and difficult to pull off, even consistently. but we don't seem to be factoring in skill level required to play at a kompetitive level.
Kitana:
Well, it's definitely the best projectile in the game. The fact that it shuts down glitch jabbing brings it so high up. Keep in mind, I'm talking about the iAF, nothing else. You can throw it immediately after you leave the ground, and run behind it for free pressure. It's good in a lot of different situations, and the cooldown on when you can use it again is fairly short. She definitely loses to Male Ninjas, H.Smoke in particular. But, she has either equal or favorable match-ups with the rest of the cast, I'd even say it's a 5-5 with Kabal. Basically anyone who can't teleport has to deal with her iAF and the free pressure that comes along with it.
She also has great jabs, as do the other female ninjas. They out prioritize other jabs, and have great range. Her throw also is one of the best. The hitbox is ridiculous and it too seems to out prioritize a lot of things, and even throws you out of animations. She has decent ground damage, and exceptional punishment damage. Her damage isn't what makes her great though, but being able to get 50%+ off of a punish helps make her a real threat.
Reptile:
Reptile is good, but not top 5, imo. If he could iAF his forceballs, or they had less recovery like an iAF, he'd definitely be a contender. Even with his high damage potential, his strongest asset his is invisibility. I would say, that an invisible Reptile is easily top 5, same with Robot Smoke. The invisibility in UMK3 is definitely broken, I will 100% go on record saying that. All you need is setups to initiate his invis safely, and Reptile has a lot of those. The only reason he's not a top 5 character is because there's 5 other characters I believe that are better.
Kung Lao
1 - mistake can happen on defense, during His offensive pressure, which can lead to infinite. it isn't purely defensive at all like your eluding to… #set-ups
2 - being in the corner against Kung is basically game over if you lack a teleport because like you said you cannot jump safely. even a blocked/punished teleport could result in infinite. your lack of credit to Kung Lao concerns me. maybe as much as my lack of credit to Kitana to you, lol.
Kung Lao:
You can make a mistake on defense, definitely. It just isn't going to be very often, especially with gj/kjs. The problem with Kung Lao is that a lot of what he does is punishable, and he heavily relies on the opponent making a mistake. That's human error, which obviously happens a lot, but shouldn't really be factored in when considering tier lists. Anyway, he relies on forcing you into making a mistake. If you make no mistakes, he can only ever just apply pressure and his versatility helps with that, a lot. Which is why I say his infinite is not a reason on why he's good. It's the threat of the infinite that allows him to keep applying pressure, with you afraid to do much. The threat is still there in UMK3:TE, you just won't be punished with the entire round when Kung lands his spin, but you'll still lose 60% of your life, which by that time, you'll be dead anyway.
