GMAT Sentence Correction (SC) | Re: Rather than vs Instead of

1. 'Instead of, which means 'in the place of' is a prepositional phrase and hence, what follows must be a noun or noun phrase only. Therefore we can use 'instead of' only when we choose between two nouns.
On the contrary, rather than is a conjunction and hence could be used to compare both nouns and verbs.
As far as GMAT is concerned, it has a preference for 'rather than' since it is more broad-based and that is more likely to be parallel.
Although structurally both are different, it is doubtful
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