I’m very interested to see how this might impact your perspective on future Caribbean trips dive quality wise.
Raja Ampat's diversity is above and beyond anything I've ever seen in the Caribbean, the degree to which some reef scenes were 'teeming with life' was a cut above (though at times you may see schools of brown chromis on some Caribbean reefs), the colorfulness of many fish was greater (compare a sweetlips to a yellow snapper), and the size of some of the hard corals, sea fans and anemones (literally the size of bed pillows) was impressive.
Here's an example of the ornateness factor. You've probably seen a pipe fish in the Caribbean at some point; maybe a guide pointed out what looked like a tiny stick, and you watched a bit and saw it move. Here's one from Raja Ampat:
What is with that crazy tail fin?
All that said, Bonaire's far southern sites (e.g.: Sweet Dreams is my favorite - lush gorgonians in the shallows), the outer atolls of Belize via liveaboard and Little Cayman's Blood Bay Wall/Jackson Bight area have beautiful, lush reefs (and often better viz.). Roatan dove from CocoView Resort had some sweet, lush reefs (but nowhere near the fish life of Raja Ampat).
Comparing destinations is a very apples-to-oranges endeavor.
Back in February I went to Bonaire 2 weeks and got in 48 dives (without any night dives; 4/day x 12) with the freedom and self-agency that solo shore diving offers, and I didn't have anywhere near the grueling travel ordeal and uncertainty, for around $3,700 all in. But I ate a lot of PB&J sandwiches, cookies and chips, the culinary high point of the day was a double cheeseburger and fries or chips from a food truck, and I wasn't led by professional guides on tours of some of the greatest coral reefs on Earth in-between being fed by a chef for 10 days.
Did any particular dives blow you away in regard to fish, reef big encounters etc that dives in Caribbean simply can’t touch?
We hit 2 sites aiming for mantas, and got action on both (on the 2nd, the prior 2 trips didn't see them, but we did). All were the all-black reef mantas. These sites had lower viz. and were a bit murky. But this isn't something I've seen in the Caribbean:
How would you overall compare the quality of the diving with some of your other destinations?
The Galapagos out by Wolf and Darwin have a similar 'teeming with life' vibe, they're about medium to large animals, not macro or corals (though there's some of both), the water's colder you need to wear exposure protection so you can grab abrasive rocks and tuck yourself into crevices (due to current) and watch the show, and viz. is a bit limited. They also dive from pangas (fun fact; I said 'panga' and our Cruise Director asked what it was; in Raja Ampat, apparently they're called dinghies. Panga, dinghy, RIB, whatever).
For species diversity, big corals and ornate sea life, and for macro., I've seen nothing like Raja Ampat.
As for 'big stuff,' Raja Ampat is decent (aside from the mantas, which rock). From what I saw, black tip reef sharks looked around 3 or 4 feet long, maybe, white-tip sharks smaller and leaner, the gray reef sharks tended to be murky overhead silhouettes (looked online - they resemble Caribbean reef sharks), Napoleon wrasse are smaller than goliath grouper (maybe giant sea bass size, as seen in California?), bump head parrotfish pretty good size (didn't see many), titan triggerfish look about 2 feet long, some of the jacks might approach 3 feet, the morays I saw weren't as large as the big greens of the Caribbean, 1 hawksbill and several green sea turtles, plenty of batfish, some medium-grouper, big puffers...on the whole, I'd say for medium (i.e.: dinner plate sized) and up animals, Raja Ampat had more than Caribbean destinations I've seen, including fish like this one that I don't know what they are:
But for divers who like (or need) really benign conditions (e.g.: no current), there's a lot to be said for the Caymans, Roatan, Bonaire, Curacao, Belize, etc... Cozumel's drift diving was more difficult than those but less so than Raja Ampat for me, it had great viz., abundant life and I'm a fan of the Palancar area reefs. Any of these destinations lends itself to the typical 7-day/1-week 'get away' American vacation, and Raja Ampat does not.
And U.S.-based divers who want 'big stuff' can enjoy the goliath grouper and lemon sharks out of Jupiter, FL, the sand tiger sharks out of North Carolina, the tiger sharks via shark feeding diving out of Jupiter, FL and Tiger Beach in the Bahamas, or the Socorros, Cocos Island, the Galapagos or Malpelo (I haven't dove the Bahamas, Socorros, Cocos or Malpelo).