Personally I do not look at Ridenton and say "yeah, but does he measure up to Mierzejewski?".
Instead I look at him and say: he is one of the better non-visa players in our squad, relative to his age and experience.
Ultimately we have only that many visa spots, and if you think he is not Bonevacia then that is fair but in my opinion he is not a player that I would need to replace with a visa player. He simply is good enough for us as a non-visa player in that spot.
If you find a good Aussie player (better than Ridenton) ready to play for us in that position, then sure. But I would rather not use a visa spot to replace Ridenton because there is no need. I would think we have other positions crying out for a better player (a visa one, if necessary). Whether Ridenton is as good as foreign visa players in other HAL teams is simply a moot point for me while we are struggling to find a good left winger/striker.