Yeah no one said 2015 Kitana was top, but she's always been very strong in the entirety of 2016 yet she kept getting buffs after buffs until we wind up with that ridiculous fans shredding machine we have today.
I don't really think her community meant to downplay her to this point, but they suffer from what i call the "scorpion syndrome", Kitana is just one of those characters who'll always be mid-tier in the general consensus no matter how stupid she gets.
I really don't see any kitana mains claiming she's midtier though.
Kitana imo is top 5. Some have her top 10, but I can't think of a single kitana main that would put her lower than that.
I think some people upplay kitana to a ridiculous degree, and then when inevitably kitana mains step in and say stuff like, "there's less fair characters, and she's definitely not the best in the game", that gets construed as downplaying.
Mkx has a bunch of very strong characters, and she's one of them. There are characters who have game plans and tools that are much more frustrating to fight than kitana's. In my opinion of course.
If kitana had a damage nerf to her bnb's (like instead of a typical meterless combo doing 34%, they'd do 28-30%) I'd actually be really happy. I'm tired of the kitana crying at this point. It's counterintuitively a bummer that she's so good as someone that's been playing her a long time.