I prefer Pepsi. But congratulations for being the one person on this thread who was able to accurately and objectively describe the two flavors.
The flavors of various sodas have sometimes suffered from the transition out of glass, into aluminum and now plastic. An original, cane sugar Coke in the small glass bottle is a real treat, awesome. They were better than Pepsi, much as that pains me to admit, since Pepsi has a more local origin whereas Coke was more of a Georgia thing.
Pepsi fared better in cans. Coke started to seem a little too sweet and slightly flat by comparison. In plastic, it’s Pepsi hands down. The too-sweet flatness was aggravated by the move.
Diet Coke tastes salty to me, but Pepsi does not. It’s the better of the two diet sodas as well.
One old favorite that fared even worse across the various containers is Mt. Dew. It doesn’t even resemble the original in anything but the dayglow color. The diet version is nearly undrinkable.