It is tough for me to rate Visions too low, but I guess I look at this way:
Tracks 3-6 from that record (and track 1) are all good, but they are songs I all merely like; I don't consider any of them essential.
On the flip side, the title track and Deathless are two of their best songs IMO (both would be in my top 6-7 probably), and they take up over 30 minutes of the total 71 minutes. Throw in Nocturnal Conspiracy, which is damn good and pretty essential, and you now have 43 minutes of 71 being essential.
Ultimately, I might give it the slight edge over Affinity for 3rd place since it has more essential minutes (Affinity has probably three essential tunes in my book, which take up less than 25 minutes), plus it doesn't have any throwaways like Affinity does in Initiate. I do think most of the songs on Affinity, though, aside from Initiate, are better than every song on Visions except for the title track, Deathless and Nocturnal Conspiracy.
The Mountain and Aquarius are the obvious 1a and 1b, if you ask me.