I agree that it's debatable how much improvement it would be to replace Meeke with Mikkelsen. The only clear part is there would be less crashes as stated by my post.
This is why I mention what you also end up with... that Meeke and Mikkelsen would certainly be much better than what they have now. Both due to Mikkelsen's performance and the positive effects it would likely have on Meeke and car development.

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Technicalities not important to the main point:

- Citroen's goal of "only event wins" first came after Corsica (by Matton) when they saw that they had no chance in championship
- "2,5" event wins by Meeke is kind of funny specially in light of Mexico last stage, clearly Neuville does not have one full win for Monte and Sweden combined
- Mikkelsen has won 3 wins so far, if you turn it around you might also say that he then beat the best driver (Ogier) in same car.