a 26 year old who did not even make this years Olympic team as a #3 goalie
You keep making this same point over and over. And it's not much of a point. As others have pointed out repeatedly, the only reason that Miller was not selected was because of his thumb injury, and Team USA was not willing to take any chances that he wouldn't be 100% in time. When it became clear that Miller was fully recovered, it was too late to put him on the team, and Team USA did all that they could do - put him on the practice squad.
Honestly, taking the fact that Miller wasn't on Team USA because of a
freaking injury, and then using that to imply that he didn't make it on merit, is both petty and low, since you know how misleading it is.
Furthermore, I don't know why you are so obsessed about Team USA's roster selections as pretty much the only measure of quality that you rely upon. Because clearly Waddell and Co. knew what the hell they were doing when they picked the roster. They did such a bang-up job putting together the roster that went on to medal . . . oh wait, no they didn't. They put together a team that sucked and underachieved.
Despite the fact that he
utterly failed in his task to put together a winning team, you take Waddell's roster choices as some kind of gospel truth of player quality. Why? I know why - because it's pretty much that only damn thing you can point to that can be spun to make your boy DiPietro look better than Miller. You certainly can't point to stats. So you keep banging the same Olympic drum over and over and over.
would not have been the starting goalie even had he been put in at the last moment
That's your opinion, I disagree. Had there been an open competition in Turin, I think Miller would have earned the top spot. But that's my opinion. They are both opinions, and there's no way of knowing what would have happened in a hypothetical situation. So don't state your opinion of what would have happened as a fact.
and has less improvement left ahead of him then the aforementioned
How do you figure? DiPietro has been in the NHL for a few years and hasn't significantly improved. In fact, I think he regressed this past season. I know he played behind a worse defense than Miller did, but DiPietro himself looked horribly inconsistent. Following up strong showings with terrible ones, soft goals that can't be blamed on poor defense. The fact that DiPietro is still, still plagued by such inconsistency several years into his NHL career makes me wonder if he will ever mature into a consistent player. And as I said, he seemed to regress this season. If he has so much room for improvement, as you say, he seems to be heading in the wrong direction.
Miller, on the other hand, only just finished up his rookie season. He is still a young player and still has plenty of potential to improve with more games played. He has shown no signs that his development has stagnated or stalled, as DiPietro has. And he should be reaping the benefits of his experience in the Sabres' long playoff run. Indeed, Miller's postseason experience is now much greater than DiPietro's.