That's the price to pay for Ricciardo to redeem himself and relaunch his career. The move to Renault proved disastrous so far, and there is little hope of improvement.
Ricci staying at Renault assumes Renault is staying in F1! If Ricci knows or has doubts about Renault's commitment,... he may be more willing to take a pay cut than some may think.
There's no point replacing Vettel. The Scuderia needs to fix the house inside first. Reliability, pit calls, the car, etc. Just hand Vet a 1 year contract extension with a cheaper price, and lets see how that goes on. Spending so much on Ricci is useless. He's not to say lighted the Renault camp on fire.
Renault's days in F1 are numbered, as with Haas. In a year or so they won't be around. There will be a driver surplus unless F1 allows 3 car teams. I would offer drivers minimum wage on new contracts--seriously where are they going to go? Auto racing is contracting like every other major sport. No fans=no money.