Scholes is a very good player on the ball on his day but I can't remember him ever controlling a game of football in the way Xavi, Pirlo or even Alonso do. He's also a passenger off the ball and a team might aswell play with 10 men if you don't have the ball with Scholes in your team.
I think I've got a new phrase for what happens to players like Scholes, its "Makelele syndrome", he does a decent job for the team without ever really doing anything spectacular. The reality was he was a decent holding midfielder who did a good job for Chelsea, now he's portrayed as some sort of world beater and one of the worlds best midfielders. Very odd.
There's a long list of players that have been hyped up in this way. Capdevila, Carrick, Park Ji-Sung, Kuyt, Heskey etc all spring to mind in recent memory. I'm not saying they're all at the same level of ability, but whats happened to them is pretty similar, people claim they are doing some important invisible work which makes them seem like a vital piece of the team even though they're probably the easily replaceable members of the team.