If you have a dragon or a couatl and have it change shape into, say, the CR 3 knight, what among brave, multiattack, leadership, and parry is "not a class feature" and would therefore be available to the creature?
And, does it get racial benefits on top of the knight's stats? In which case, if you have it turn to a variant human with the Tough feat, would you count its "level" as its CR or its number of hit dice? If that feat is just unavailable, then what if it turns into a mage that specifies it's an "x-level spellcaster"?