To give you an idea of the state of the Regia Marina, a number of times the combined Anglo-French forces pushed Italy to mount a joint attack on the Austro-Hungarian Navy but each time Italy refused to do so.

If Italy refused to engaged into open combat against the Austro-Hungarian Navy, there was no chance they would attempt anything against the combined Anglo-French force in the Mediterranean.

Sure but it was largely a port navy, by that I mean that most of the Austro-Hungarian Navy spent most of its life in port. And those dreadnoughts were rendered completely useless by the Anglo-French Otranto Barrage.

There was simply no match for the combined Anglo-French naval force and it would have been extremely unadvisable for the Royal Italian Navy to try and go against this Anglo-French force.

I think there are a number of issues with a lot of the statements.

The first one is the idea that Italy could have genuinely considered entering the war in the Central Powers' side. Reason being that the relationship between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire was anything but cordial. Remember, the Third War of Independence had ended barely 50 years before and ended with the Austro-Hungarian empire losing the last of it's major holdings in Italy. Although the spirit of the Risorgimento was no longer the guiding principle of Italian foreign policy, there were still elements of Italian society that believed that Italy had a natural right to Trieste, Dalmatia and Trentino. None of which the Austro-Hungarian empire was ready to cede.

Another element to consider is the Mediterranean. A lot if the theories are limited to what may have happened during a land-based war but ignores what would have happened at sea. The Austro-Hungarian empire didn't have a navy to speak of but both France and the UK had colonial holdings in North Africa and would have had the resources to wage a naval war Italy could have not won. Sure, naval warfare was nowhere near what it once was but it could still be effective. The British naval blockade of the North Sea contributed to starving Germany and was a contributing factor to its eventual surrender.