User blog comment:NaiflidG/Relating to Alastair in "On the Head of a Pin" and "Caged Heat"/@comment-5619706-20141114040541

My personal take on the matter is that while eye-color indicates rank and power, it does not necessarily mean you have all the abilities of anyone below your rank. So in a general sense, a white-eyed demon will wipe the floor with the black-eyed demons and hand over a yellow-eyed demon's ass to itself, but some individual grunts could still possess abilities special to them.

Sure, Azazel seemed completely immune to holy water, but this does not necessarily make him more powerful than Alastair the same way Tammi (Astaroth) is more powerful than Azazel just because she managed to stop the colt's bullet in mid-air, or how Alastair could go toe-to-toe with angels, then claiming LIlith can't because we haven't seen her.