The impression I got from Junior is that he was more of an orchestrator pulling the strings behind the scenes, just going by the way he had Mikey whack Brendan Filone and Donnie P. I just have a hard time picturing him pulling the trigger himself. Look at the way he outsourced the attempted whacking of Tony. I know Tony was his nephew but surely that means you want to ensure the job is done properly with no complications. When Tony needed to get rid of Animal Blundetto and Christopher, he did it himself; he didn't kick the can down the road. Like Carmine Lupertazzi said, he was decisive in confronting and dealing with his problems.
In the mob, there are the brainy guys and the brawny guys. Junior definitely fell into the former category. He was a canny guy - just look at how Tony used him as an unofficial consigliere - but a "Terminator" in the mold of Bobby Bacala Sr.? I'm not seeing it.
I understand what you mean about Junior. I agree about him being more of an "orchestrator" but its like John Alite said in the Netflix documentary "Most people thought Paul Castellano was a soft guy but here's a guy who had 30 dudes clipped without every pulling a trigger, he's a much a killer as anybody." Thats the standpoint I am coming from. And think about this, guys like Feech LaManna and Richie Aprile don't respect a guy who wasn't the same cloth as them in some regard.
