Um, no? Literally right at the start of the fight, Luffy destroyed Crackers armament with Gear 4 before Nami even got involved. The only thing Cracker ever did was buy time. You have no idea if Luffy ran away at all, considering the fight was offpaneled. To say that he ran away is inaccurate.
That didn't matter. He took down one, and up came the next million. Cracker said "all you do is eat, run and repeat" because Nami kept rendering his devil fruit useless every time he used it. As we saw, Cracker could almost cut Luffy's arm in half with one swing, even though he was in gear fourth. On the offensive, Luffy couldn't manage multiple biscuit-men and Cracker's attack, so he required Nami's assistance. Do you really think Luffy was in gear fourth for 11 hours? Without Nami, he would have to stay in that form for 11 hours to run Cracker's stamina out. And all of that 11 hours he would have to be swinging attacks to replace the biscuits that Nami wouldn't be ruining for him. A few minutes of gear fourth against Doflamingo, and he had to go to sleep for 10 minutes to use it again for a minute.
Because of his limits, he required help for 10 minutes against Doflamingo. Because of his limits, he required help for a lot of hours against Cracker. What's next? He needs Brook to help him 15 hours against Smoothie and then we say Luffy is stronger when he wins the 2v1? I can see the reasoning behind this with Doflamingo, because Luffy had to do a heck of a lot more before reaching Doflamingo. That second more he needed to finish him off much earlier in the fight would of been there if he didn't handle all that came before their fight.
Big Mom > Katakuri (just guessing the last sweet commander we see is the strongest) > Smoothie > Cracker > Luffy > Doflamingo > Urouge > Snack