I think that Ponting is the victim of a bit of a witch hunt to be honest. Clarke is a selector, if he didn't want Ponting then he wouldn't be in the team (see Katich saga). Don't forget that three Tests ago Ponting set Australia up to win a Test in South Africa with a really fighting knock.
I understand your point about him not being as good as he once was... your list is nice, it has some people who've got some first class runs this year on it but are they really Test class apart from Warner? Two English season ago Adam Lyth got a fair few for Yorkshire, last season he couldn't get it off the square. Something about form being temporary...
As someone on here said a while back, Khawaja has the whiff of Ramprakash about him without the technical excellence. Cummins looks exciting, but he may be like Simon Jones and keep picking up injuries, who knows he's only played a handful of grown up games (with great success); I just meant Pattinson looks proper (and like he has a brain).