My wish would be for Mike for Steve Vai to call him again, since he was Steve's greatest drummer (him and Vinnie Colaiuta). One can dream. I'm eternally grateful for his service to DT, he shouldn't have been let go. It's unlikely for me to be able to ever understand why that happened.
Agree 100% with what you said.
I am a huge Steve Vai fan and always loved the MM-era drums and live energy. That is how I first heard about him (this is my favorite MM drum solo, which is absolute lunacy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe8XKgOuNtk) though I never followed Mike's other work and never imagined he would be in DT one day.
I find Steve's current drummer a bit boring, though he's been there forever and I get why Steve likes him. I don't know what Mike and Steve's relationship is like now but for some reason I always got the sense they don't have much of one any longer.
As far as DT is concerned, replacing MM is a top 3 all time musical mistake in my DT book, but we'll see if I change my mind when DT16 and beyond come out.