I think calling OCaml "inferior" is misleading in 2022. OCaml kept evolving (easier when not bound by a standard) and grew many features way beyond what SML offers. Things like more expressive pattern matching, GADTs, first class modules, etc. The tooling (lsp, dune, ocamlformat) is also stronger these days. That's why I think SML and OCaml are not strictly better than one another.