Bt the question reveals so much...
1) the assumption that Art cannot beat out Vedral.. and if anyone watched last season it was clear that Vedral was not much better, if at all. Last season had me wondering if Vedral was promised the starting job and that's why we kept seeing him rather than Art... even when he struggled early in games.
2) searching for a replacement for Art rather than one for Vedral.
So, yeah, I think the thought about an "anyone but Art" posse is reasonable.
A few things. In general, we know what our current game contributors bring to the table because we have seen it. Sitkowski and Vedral have had lots of game time to show us who they are and are known commodities. If one of the younger guys does unseat one of them, then by definition we have improved. It generally means that the unproven player made a big jump and moved ahead of the incumbent who didn't change, or improved at a slower rate. So rooting for the unproven understudy is not a vendetta against the incumbent. It is simply just rooting for an upgrade at the position.
Second, Art was not close to Vedral. Both players had their moments. But Art almost turned the ball over many times and had stretches (in his later appearances last year) where he was consistently inaccurate and couldn't hit open receivers. He got lucky and didn't have a bunch of turnovers, but most of us, including all the RU football beat reporters, 100% saw why GS and Gleeson wanted to limit the amount time Sitkowski was in the game and didn't feel comfortable relying on him. Every passing down was an adventure in the bad way. Vedral was a better smarter player.
Asking if Simon could unseat Sitkowski as the #2, and not asking if Simon could unseat Vedral, just seems logical given the information we have. Simon seems pretty good, but we haven't heard any reports that Simon is lighting it up and challenging for the starting position. GS and SG seemed set on Vedral (prior to Wimsett). So it seems much more likely that Simon would unseat Sitkowsky. It's nothing against him.
Finally, there is zero chance GS played Vedral despite thinking that Sitkowski gave us a better chance to win for some hidden reason. No chance of that happening because GS made a recruiting promise to Vedral, or for any reason.