To Like A Thing Better

1B) "I like oranges better than apples."
1C) "I like cherries the best."

Do you use such expressions in everyday speech? Why do I find them jarring? I'd prefer to say the following.

2B) "I like oranges more than apples."
2C) "I like cherries the most."

But, I'd most prefer to use the word "prefer". Then on the other hand I don't find the following so awkward.

1A) "He was well liked by his peers."

I'd even sort of prefer it to the following.

2A) "He was much liked by his peers."

I would be perfectly comfortable saying any of 1B, 1C or 2B, 2C. But I would never, ever say 2A.

I'd say 2B, 2C, and 1A, but none of the others

"much liked" sounds more like formal English to me.
anyway "much" and "well" are not so similar...

Veuillez compare these:

The shelter was well made.

The shelter was much made. *

Now there's a spanner in the works!

No, indeed, they are quite different. 1A) may be more common than 2A). However, consider these.

2D) I like watermelons very much.

verses

1D) I like watermelons very well.

I like watermelons muchly.

I myself find all the given examples to be grammatical, but some might be chosen over others depending on things like register; in particular, the examples using "well" would generally be favored over those using "much" in more formal registers in practice.

In my post above, to clarify, I must state that I was referring to just the posts above by Jim, and not some of the other posts like those by todosmentira and Guest.