Aloha !

I partially agree. I feel that all the demand from people wanting Richie back is based upon performances of over 10 years ago or just based upon a gut feeling saying "it doesn't sound the same" while it's only the visual that's different to them. Phil's tone is much closer to Richie's tone from the early 00's than Richie's own sound is nowadays, it's only the build ups in the guitar solo's that's not good as the ones for Richie, probably because Phil has "only" played most of the stuff live for just a year and is not as familiar with the band like Richie, and in fact we are.

Richie's last truly great tour was in 2003, when he could still properly improvise and was actually willing to show off. Ever since the Have A Nice Day tour Richie has more or less sucked as a guitarist because, with the odd exception here and there, Richie has been on autopilot as much as Jon has the last few years. His tone only got a little bit better since the Lost Highway tour, but was back to being terrible on The Circle tour, albeit the odd song played on a Fender or Gibson. If he'd just drop that ESP and effects rig and would go back to just plugging in his Fender and Gibsons into his regular amps, chances are his signature sound would come back as well.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan