I also think that you might get another year out of Ivan. Follow me here for a bit of pie in the sky thinking.
Ramon is pretty much unknown to the AWs team when you think about who is likely to start. The same could be said of any outside candidate as well but that's where having Ivan for 1 more year would help start that relationship between the coach and players. Some coaches come in and the relationship is offside straight away but with the club relationship between him and Ivan, even as a squad guy, he could help that dynamic a bit.
41 is young for a head coach but you can't argue his style of football which it would seem is the path we want to take for the talent we have and that he can coach it. I think his style relies on a ball playing deep lying DM (think Mulligan, Ki-Hung Lee) vs a traditional ball winning DM (think Manny) which is the one glaring weakness we have so that would be interesting how he adapts around that (granted it would be tailor made for Chris James). It would bring more from Keat and Payne whom tend to be ball players than ball winners.
this makes sense to me. a coach needs good lieutenants and i assume ivan would be a good advocate for ramon
also, i am not willing to judge ivan on his performance against mexico. the whole team was a shambles and he had not played often in the build up friendlies
(the same appplies to roux, durante, smith and tuiloma in the second game - cobbled togther back 4's don't tend to be world beaters)