Was the setting anything to do with that? Punk Hazard, where there's a lot of snow to heighten the effects of Aokiji's powers and not a lot to manipulate with Doflamingo's awakening.
It wasn't implied if true. I don't think settings help Aojiki at all. He can do ice wherever he wants. He seemed to just not be interested in fighting Aojiki himself.
Fujorita is an admiral but he hasn't been given the same level of hype that Akainu, Aojiki, and Kizaru were given together. He was ok with fighting Fujiorita at least implying they were on the same level. That's probably partially due to Fujiorita having no backup inside Dofla's castle and Dofla having his crew right there to back him up. Still I wouldn't have any issues putting the two of them in the same tier.
I guess the AAK (3 previous admirals) were probably the strongest admirals in history.
Not quite Admiral tier, but enough to at least provide them some problems I guess. At most, it'd probably be a high diff battle for an Admiral, but nothing beyond that and a certain victory for the Admiral regardless.