For me, Rice will look significantly better when he got a quality setup around him and players who allow him to just keep his game simple. He's got shite like Mark Noble around him at WH and just about zero creativity in front of him so he's forced to try to do everything.
Again, he's not a £60-80m player. Never in a million years. But put him at the base of our midfield next to Kante/Kova/Jorginho and I think he adds a hell of a lot of steel and energy in there.