Somewhere I encountered the following example sentence:
小{ちい}さいのより大{おお}きい方{ほう}がいいです。
It's supposed to mean "The big (one) is better than the small (one)." If I understand correctly, より should directly follow a noun (or a noun-like construction, ), and 方 shold be attached to a noun using the の particle. So in my opinion, the above sentence should be more like
小{ちい}さいより大{おお}きいの方{ほう}がいいです。
or
大{おお}きいの方{ほう}が小{ちい}さいよりいいです。
To make it more confusing, 小さい and 大きい are not nouns, and even as adjectives, they behave specially (sometimes they are treated like い-adjectives, sometimes they require な).
So my question is, what is the correct way to say "the big (one) is better than the small (one)"?
Edit: now that I think about it, 方 and より can be attached to plain-form expressions without the の, so maybe the correct version should not contain の at all:
大{おお}きい方{ほう}が小{ちい}さいよりいいです。