Way to early to make judgements.
Clarke's been in the role for less than 12 months. The early signs are good, and critically for Clarke, he doesn't inherit the $hit Sandwich that Ponting did of taking over a great but ageing team.
IMO, three critical things have happened to Clarke that have been in his favour:
1) the long term injury to Mitchell Johnson;
2) the appointment of Craig McDermott as bowling coach;
3) the emergence of genuinely young and exicting bowlers.
From 1 and 2 above, we now have a fast bowling unit that can consistently bowl to a plan. You'd never know it from some of the critics, but Ponting had plans as well. You only needed to look at his field settings for certain batsman to know it. The problem was his bowlers and particularly Johnson were incapable of bowling to the plan and, hence, field placements were moved to more conventional settings. Whether its the influence of McDermott or just a growing maturity in Siddle and Hilfenhaus, the sudden ability of these two to pitch the ball up and bowl consistently to a plan has been instrumental in the team's improvement.
The rise of Starc and Pattinson has been expected for 2 years now, its only been a case of waiting for them to get some first class experience. Cummins came from nowhere.
So, fortuitously Clarke winds up with something Ponting didn't have for 4 years now - depth in the fast bowling department and bowlers with the mental capacity to stick to a plan.
The real challenge for Clarke as I see it, is rebuilding the batting order. With Ponting and Hussey inevitably departing some time in the next year or two, there'll be some major changes and the first class records of the next cab of the rank group (the likes of Cowan, Forrest, Marsh, Ferguson) arent a patch on the previous generation (Hussey, Katich, Lehmann and so on).
Provided Clarke performs with the bat however, he'll probably be forgiven batting failures. He may however need to move up the order to demonstrate, as the team's best batsman, that he's prepared to shoulder the responsibility. If the team is not perofrming with the bat it will be a bad look for the captain to be coming in at 3rd wicket down.
Early days, and the signs are quite good but there are challenges ahead.
The batting is anything but settled with a renewed and unhealthy reliance on the veteran players, while looking about the broader test scene Pakistan looks to be on the rise, England (depsite its current hiccups) is settled and its core players (strauss aside) are young enought to be around for the remainder of Clarke's tenure and, Kallis aside, a similar obversation can be made about South Africa.