I certainly agree all pixels and all sensors are not equal and neither are the down stream electronics so ...... when you bring in all these other factors there is a lot to consider BUT solely for the purpose of resolution (all else being equal) I would think more pixels on the subject would be superior. With so many other variables entering into the comparison it is almost impossible to control for all of them and making comparisons is dicey. Also, most of the images that we are using to compare are very small files for web presentation. The differences may be much more apparent when you go to make a very large print.

With good light and a good photographer the 7DII, 5DIII, 1D4 and the 1DX all seem to make beautiful images to me .... no matter the numbers