First I'd like to Gratz to Messek on his Swiftwind, but that his gaining his epic
DOES NOT make him the one that got Veeshan 1 epic higher than Tunare. If you look at the date the statistics were gathered and last updated it says "December 2002" which means it's very possible that Tunare has more epics than Veeshan does now since they've had a month to do so (of course, I doubt that
).
But I just wanted to make one other notable comment: The Paladin epic is one of the most simplistic epics to get and requires very little effort in comparison to most epics. So what does it say to you when it's the 4th from the last most rare epic (even behind the Magician epic). Either that it's that much easier to get Quillmane, that Naggy and Vox are a serious set back to the epic, or that the paladin epic isn't worth the effort (or maybe all three...). That's a little disenchanting.
Oh well, it doesn't mean this pally won't try eventually.