I agree with almost everything you said except for the last part I put in bold. Lidstrom was obviously a big factor in limiting Lindros, but let's not forget that those Red Wings were most likely the strongest two-way team in the NHL. They had 4 Selke calibre players including Fedorov, Yzerman, Maltby and Draper. It took a collective to limit Lindros.
Lindros also had certain limitations to his game offensively, that say Jagr or Lemieux didn't have. While it was proven that one can shut Lindros down, Lemieux and Jagr could never get shut down like that in the 90's. Just ask Scott Stevens about Jagr in the 1999 playoffs.
Otherwise I do agree that some people severely underrate Howe. For me, Lemieux being #4 is very fair, in fact in any single rendition of a top 100, 50, 25, 10 top lists, Lemieux is always ranked 4th. Quite frankly, Orr's peak is more impressive than Lemieux', I would go as far as saying that Orr's peak is comparable to Gretzky's considering Orr was a defenseman.
Lemieux is the single most one-dimensional player you will find in the top 5-8 range. He was lazy, couldn't be bothered to play defense, would basically stay on the ice for 28-30 minutes, and when he was tired, would sit out games, and then go on and score 8 Pts in a blowout game. For all of his heroics, Lemieux has 0 OT playoff goals in his career. Please don't give me the whole Hodgkin thing either, if maybe Lemieux took more care of his body back then, and didn't smoke, things would have been different for him.
I would pick Beliveau, Orr, Howe and Gretzky before I would pick Lemieux.
Also as mentioned, Jagr is way too low on the list, and Crosby, way too high.