Although I agree jocks shouldn't normally be consulted on the choice of automation systems, I think they do need to be consulted (or at least observed) about what they are trying to do, and how they are doing it to produce the product they are producing. The observer (you) then need to think outside-of-the-box a little and consider how all this might be done better.
Compared to Simian, I find how many functions are broken out into separate programs in Rivendell leaves the on air part (rdairplay) to have a nice clean interface that leads to less on-air mistakes and problems with staff tampering. The built in "music scheduler", though primitive, might avoid needing to purchase a 3rd party one (are they using one on Simian?). Other programs like "rdcatch" simply don't exist in Simain (last I checked, although you can schedule batch files from the main log to do things, but that is a little scary). I used to have "database" ("Soundhound") problems with Simian too, but things might be better debugged by now. Oh, and I've had to get viruses off of Simian systems before, of course NOT Rivendell ones. Simian systems do have things like "rdpanel" and "rdcartslots" and a CD ripper, but typically at an added cost. Finally with Rivendell, you never have to worry about your software getting "unregistered" for various reasons like you do with Simain.
Related to this, I might ask the question of what "problem" are you trying to solve that switching from Simian to Rivendell is meant to fix? I've personally seen many automation systems (including BSI Simian) work just fine for people. So if you can identify some things where Simian simply can't do that Rivendell can, in areas that matter to the operation of the station, then there would be your selling point. It seems to me that they may not be using Simian to fullest extent anyway and perhaps it would work just fine if it was deployed better?
As I've been in management/technical positions over many automation system deployments, I'll offer my insight on comparing them to Rivendell. Most of the current bread of systems out there I've seen seem to work just fine (in many cases, "very well") when properly deployed. I feel Rivendell compares to most of these at least feature-wise. It also at least compares to some in terms of system stability. This is unfortunate as I'd like to say that it is superior to others (after all it runs on Linux), but it is not. Granted I use Rivendell on Debian (from Tryphon binaries, usually), so my deployment is not an officially supported Paravel system. Also I've done a lot of unusual things to and with our deployment that might be a contributing factor in some cases. In any case I don't consider Rivendell to be "bug free" or even as "bug free" as many (but not all) of the other systems out there. Just kind of typical, or a slightly below.
Next it comes down to "support". Granted this community can be very helpful at times, but it falls short of some of the "top notch" support I've seen some of the other companies provide to their customers (granted: at a price! $$$). It is not uncommon for me to see them "remote in" to their customers systems on a 24-hour basis, then diagnose and fix things with little end-user involvement. If you choose to use the Appliance CD (or a turnkey Paravel system), you can at least be eligible to purchase Paravel support. I do not know how this support compares to others that are similarly priced.
The reason for the above paragraph is that this should be a major concern to an organization wanting to migrate to Rivendell. With my Rivendell deployment, we were originally tied in with ownership of the station, and thus "I wasn't going anywhere", so it was deemed safe for me to be the support person for our custom installation. We've since sold our interest in the station (we might be good at building them, but not so good at running them, especially when they are out of town!), so now the new owner has found himself more or less "married" to me which is beginning to worry him because he considers my rates out of his budget. I'm not in any way trying to rip him off, but the point is, one needs to worry about who is going to offer continuing support on the system, which ever system is chosen. All the more reason to go with a Paravel supported system just in case you have to buy some Paravel support someday. In my case I couldn't get the Appliance to easily do some of the things I'm doing with our system, and even if I had, it might have disqualified it for support anyway. That said, I see the possibility of the current owner of my Rivendell deployment considering either redeplolying on the Appliance, or worse yet, migrating to something like Simian or iMediatouch (or some other "lower cost" system) if he is serious that he thinks I am too expensive for him (I'm not really, he just needs to budget a few dollars for "engineering" which he isn't at all right now).
I am not in any way blaming Fred at Paravel for not supporting systems like mine that are installed on Linux distributions foreign to him. I also don't blame him for any outstanding bugs in the current Rivendell system, as bugs exist in all systems. The difference is that many of the other bigger companies have much larger support staff that can be more responsive to their paying customers. In fact, as not even being a Paravel customer, Fred has personally fixed many issues I've found with Rivendell totally free of charge (Thank you Fred!), but he is under no obligation to do so, and I totally understand that.
In summery: I'd consider "fixing" issues with the Simian system if you can (since they already bought it, unless it is an older version that needs upgrading for more money), otherwise the previously recommended process of building up a "test" system on some old hardware (not even one of those expensive ASI sound cards unless they have one laying around from an old broken Simian system) and let them see how life could be on Rivendell would be a good direction to go. I would also test your ability to actually deploy a Rivendell system, which is NOT all that easy as well.
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