Yes Richie is underrated. But I have heard some people over here talking about him as the most complete guitarrist, mentioned that he can play almost every style very good and also his creativity is in top of the scale, have read a interview with Richie were he mentioned that he never really play the same solo live, he always want's to add a few notes...

But Richie is also on of the few guitarrists that has his own signature guitar, and there is at least tree different Sambora signatur guitars, not many guitarrist has that.