Great egret vs Intermediate egret -identification

I have been one of the folks who have been having trouble differentiating Great egrets vs Intermediate egrets. When I saw my first Intermediate egret I mistook it for a Great egret. I was dismayed finding out it was just an Intermediate but it was a lifer still. Since then I've been looking for Great egrets but have not been successful until I found one by accident. To cut to the chase refer to the photo below. Bird #6 is a Great egret. Taken from the photo of the first one I saw but of another frame. Aside from size and length of neck and shape of head and size of bill in relation to head, one key feature is the gape. Bird #6 shows the gape is past the eye while all other birds in the picture don't. Bird #2 does seem to have a bigger bill and the gape seems to go past the eye but is just a crease in the feathers around the gape area. The head is not too tapered or is rather rounded, which means it is another Intermediate egret. All others show rather shorter bills in relation to the head. Also I have noticed that the eyes are also somewhat larger in proportion to their heads.  Great egrets tend to look to have smaller eyes due to their large bills and head.

Great egret

 Here is a photo of a Great egret taken in Tayud, Consolacion, Cebu, same spot where I had that BIF taken.  Shows the typical tapered head and longer bill, the kink in the neck and the perfect "S" it makes when the bird positions its head like that.

Intermediate egret

In contrast, the Intermediate egret - left, has a rounder head, shorter bill and neck. This is the same as bird#2 in the first photo. The less curvy neck was the biggest hint that this was not a Great egret. Another hint was the habitat.

Here is a size comparison between a Litte egret and a Great egret. The length of the neck is really obvious.

Here is all three species - Little, Intermediate and Great.

Foreground (left to right): Little, Intermediate, then 3 littles and an Intermediate just behind them.

At the back (left to right): Great, Intermediate with muddied bill, Great and a Greenshank and Intermediate.